The Neville Trilogy
by vuarapuung
Summary: When Harry is kidnapped by forces unknown, our beloved Neville may be the only one who can save him. His mission to rescue his friend may lead him into the most epic adventure imaginable, full of romance, mystery, action, adventure and cleavage.
1. NN: Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: Based on situations and characters created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

_Foreword from the author: _This great trilogy has been a long time in the making. It began as a little joke on the boards of Fiction Alley. So many shippers claim "Oh, insert fic name here converted me to insert random pairing here". So I got the idea of writing the fic that will convert everyone to N/G, because too often it's just a side ship for something else.

The thing to note, guys, is that this is really just a joke that got a little bit out of control. Don't take it too seriously, or you might start to get a bit annoyed.

I drew (_ahem_) "inspiration" for this fic from many sources, though I can't get past without mentioning Cassandra Cla(i)re, who wrote a few fics a couple of years back that you might have heard of. But this fic isn't just about her, it has a few of my own little takes on some of the favourite clichés of the fandom. A lot of credit to several other masters of their fields who inspired me, particularly Stephenie Meyer (all will become clear later) and to Hideo Kojima, who filled Metal Gear Solid with gormless soldiers that were really the inspiration behind the Death Eaters.

And also, I suppose I better mention J.K. Rowling, who may have had a little something to contribute to this story.

_Edit_: Should also mention, this is an AU after GoF, so it will contain spoilers up until that point but there are none after that, and if there are well, they'll probably be just a snide little reference you'll barely notice. This takes place in Sixth Year.

Enough prattle from me...

The first part of The Neville Trilogy

_**NEVILLE NUMQUAM**_

_chapter one_

_the draft of living death_

It was utterly freezing in the Potions dungeon. Whoever had decided to hold classes underground in a castle in the north of Scotland obviously wasn't a big fan of heat.

Professor Snape trudged on with the lesson though. He carefully drew a flask of a clear liquid from the cauldron sitting upon his desk.

"Can any of you tell me what this potion is?" Snape asked with a sneer.

All the boys' heads snapped round to look at Granger, whose hand had shot into the air. As Snape continued to ignore her, she started to bounce up and down, causing two certain parts of her anatomy to bounce up and down as well. Nearly all the boys groaned.

Only Ron Weasley was oblivious. He was more interested in the right index finger that was currently mining his nose in search of the precious mineral often found there.

"It's the Draught of Living Death, sir!" Granger squeaked out, unable to contain herself any longer. Snape continued as if he hadn't heard her.

"Really? No one?" he asked. He looked expectantly at Draco Malfoy, who was the best pupil in his class that he would acknowledge, but the young man was more interested in Hermione Granger bouncing up and down.

"Potter!" Snape snapped. "What potion did I tell you about in the first lesson we ever had?"

Harry Potter snapped alert, sensing an opportunity to score sympathy points perhaps.

"How should I know?" he moaned. He took a deep breath. "I'M ALWAYS THE VICTIM WHY DO YOU ALWAYS MISTREAT ME YOU ARE SUCH A HORRIBLE MAN IT IS NOT MY FAULT THAT MY DAD WAS BETTER THAN YOU IN EVERY WAY AND SAVED YOUR LIFE YOU UNGRATEFUL INBRED HOOK NOSED BASTARD!"

"Detention," Snape said, feeling almost as though even bullying Potter wouldn't make him feel any better than having to teach these dunderheads.

At long last one hand wobbled up. The hand was connected to the only one Snape enjoyed picking on even more than Potter.

Neville Longbottom.

"It's the Draft of Living Death, sir," he said proudly.

Snape gave him a glare he normally reserved only for people who had had the nerve to save his life.

"Correct," he said. "Now, given that took you twenty minutes to answer I'll refrain from asking you all what it does and just tell you."

"Sir!" Granger squealed, jumping up and down again, causing Malfoy to groan loudly. He looked down at the front of his robes in horror, but apparently no one had noticed his problem. Granger continued. "The Draught of Living Death is a potent sleeping potion-!"

"Miss Granger!" Snape snapped. "Ten points from Gryffindor for interrupting me!"

Granger started leaking from her eyes. Snape twisted his head slightly to the side, unable to comprehend such a pathetic show of weakness. He looked as Potter drew in a breath and prepared himself for Potter to explode in a fit of rage and receive yet another detention.

"Sir, that's not fair!"

Snape blinked.

That hadn't been Potter's voice.

He spun around to face the offender.

Neville Longbottom?

_How was this possible?_

Snape was so stunned he could muster no further reaction to Longbottom's interruption. He was simply too shocked to comprehend the boy's uncharacteristic show of courage. He merely carried on with the lesson, telling them all about the properties of the potion.

"And now," he said with a rare smile, "I will administer the potion to each of you in turn. After all, it seems entirely plausible that I administer highly restricted potions to my sixth year classes on a regular basis. You will lie on the desk, take the potion and fall asleep. I will then give each of you the antidote."

He looked around the room, wondering which buffoon he would subject to this first.

"Mister Malfoy," he said.

Malfoy covered his face as he walked up towards the desk. Now everyone could see what a mess he'd made of the front of his robes. Luckily for Malfoy the Gryffindors appeared too sexually naive to know what it was.

Malfoy took his potion without further comment. Snape proceeded to work his way through the Slytherins. Each of them managed to handle in a mature fashion, and when awoke they looked a bit groggy for a few moments but eventually they made their way back to their seats.

"Harry Potter," Snape announced.

Deep breath.

"OH WHY IS IT ALWAYS ME YOU PICK ON THIS IS NOT FAIR WHY AM I ALWAYS THE VICTIM I HAVE NO PARENTS MY UNCLE BEAT ME WHY DOES NOBODY LOVE ME???"

"Just get up here Potter," Snape said. Potter stormed up and jumped on the desk with an almighty crash. Surprising, seeing as Potter was the tiniest sixth year Snape had ever taught. He was scrawny too, just like his father had been, and shorter than even Granger by a head. His hair was an unkempt mess that managed to stick up in almost every possible direction and yet still have enough to curl down his neck to his shoulders. By far his most striking feature remained the sparkling emerald eyes, which were touched by his unruly raven hair but not obscured as his scar was.

Potter took the potion, and, rather than lie down like a sensible person, he stood up.

"LOOK THE POTION HAS NO EFFECT ON THE MIGHTY HARRY POT-!"

_CRASH!_

Potter suddenly fell asleep on his feet, and went crashing forward where he banged his head off a desk which opened up a deep head wound that made a mess of Snape's lovely stone flooring.

"Ten points from Gryffindor, Potter, for getting blood all over my floor," Snape said lazily. Sure, Potter was unconscious and couldn't actually hear him, but it still made Snape feel a little better.

"Oh no!" Granger shrieked. "He's dying!" She rushed forward and grabbed Harry. "I must bring his head to my ample bosom, and the power of my unrequited love will revive him!" Snape raised an eyebrow as all Granger managed to do was get her robes covered in blood.

Weasley seemed unaware of this. He was more interested in the finger that had left his nose and was now hovering inches from his face with a bit of that precious nose gold Weasley was fond of. He probably had never seen real gold, so that was the next best thing.

Snape moved his attention away from Weasley to trying to administer the antidote to Potter. True, he had no love for Potter. But if the boy died on his floor Dumbledore would probably be upset, teachers might complain and Voldemort might take over the world, which would all probably wind up with him taking a significant wage cut.

Snape decided, once he had sent Potter to the Hospital Wing, that perhaps it would be in his best interest to dismiss the class earlier. He thought mournfully that he wouldn't be able to subject more Gryffindors to the Draught of Living Death.

As the dunderheads he was forced to teach filed out, Snape began to ponder the most recent changes in young Longbottom. He seemed to be growing in confidence, and even Snape had to admit the young boy wasn't the most repulsive human being on the planet.

###

Indeed, Neville had grown to become quite an attractive young man, and the girls of Hogwarts certainly seemed to notice. Well, he didn't really have much competition, but still. His was the kind of beauty you could easily spend several paragraphs ranting about. Comparisons to a young Brad Pitt might feature. It would be ludicrous of course. Neville was much better looking than Brad Pitt ever was...

Even Hermione had noticed it, even though she currently sat at the bedside of the boy whom she had loved from the moment she'd laid eyes on him. She glanced across to where Harry was, typically, out for the count. In order to silence his hysterics when he had first arrived, Madame Pomfrey had stunned him. She'd mumbled and grumbled about how Snape would surely have been better off leaving him asleep to be treated, but she got on with the job.

Although the wound was fully healed and his blood restored, Madame Pomfrey had judged it best to leave him there for a while.

So Hermione was alone with him. Well, she well as may have been alone with him. Ron was there, but he was busy dealing with an itch in the general area of his reproductive organs and thus taking no notice of them.

Hermione sighed. Oh, how she'd loved them. Both of them. She and Ron had briefly dated last year, but they'd quickly decided that they'd be better just as friends. Ron hadn't really minded. He'd been distracted by the shiny hairclip she'd worn that day. Often Hermione wondered if Ron had ever actually noticed them breaking up.

Instead Hermione had focused her attention on Harry. It had been recently that she had decided to tell him she loved him. Of course, Hermione had never done anything like that before. It hadn't gone well.

Of course, Harry had, somehow, managed to make it look like he was the victim in all this. As far as Hermione could see, the only thing she'd ever done wrong was try to make him a better person. For some reason Harry hadn't seemed as grateful as she had thought he would be.

"_LEAVE ME ALONE WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS PRESSURING ME YOU EXPECT ME TO DO MY HOMEWORK AND BATHE REGULARLY AND CHANGE MY UNDERWEAR EVERYDAY AND NOT ONLY ALL THAT HARD WORK NOW I HAVE TO LOVE YOU AS WELL?"_

Hermione sighed.

"Honestly, _Ron_!" she said hotly. "How long are you going to keep doing that? You're not an animal!"

Ron looked confused. Then again, there was never a time that he didn't look confused.


	2. NN: Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling.**

The first part of The Neville Trilogy

_**NEVILLE NUMQUAM**_

_chapter two_

_dude, where's my toad?_

Meanwhile, Neville was having troubles of his own. He had spent most of the time since that memorable Potions lesson looking for his lost toad, otherwise known as the beloved Trevor. Lavender had offered to help, and although Neville was grateful for her assistance he was a little concerned that her technique needed refining.

For one thing, it seemed to involve bending over in front of his face a lot. Which was silly, seeing as Neville had already looked there.

Neville sighed and slumped down into his chair, pretending that he did not hear Lavender huffing and stalking off. He looked up to watch her mumbling to herself as she stormed up the stairs towards the girl's dormitories.

Now, contrary to popular belief, Neville was not a total idiot. He knew exactly what Lavender was after. He knew that he had grown up to be quite an attractive young man. He himself acknowledged this by spending a few minutes each day looking in the mirror and flexing his muscles.

"_Cor! You're gorgeous!" _Dean Thomas had remarked one memorable morning. Neville had whole-heartedly agreed.

Neville was flattered by all the interest girls were giving him since he had become totally hot, but he had to admit he simply wasn't interested. He couldn't have sex with a girl just because she was smoking hot and bending over in front of him. He had standards, after all.

If she had actually found Trevor it would have been another matter entirely though.

With a groan, Neville hauled himself out of his chair. He decided he'd head down to dinner now, while it wasn't too busy and nobody would spill pumpkin juice down their fronts to try and get his attention.

When he arrived in the Great Hall he sat down beside Ron Weasley, who was shovelling food into his mouth at an almost terrifying pace. Opposite them was Hermione, who was watching Ron as if expecting him to choke to death at any second. Harry was missing; presumably he was still sedated in the Hospital Wing in the hope that that way the student body could have a quiet dinner.

Draco Malfoy, however, had other ideas.

"Oi! Oi! Weasley!" he shouted. "Can you hear me, Weasley?! I'll bet you can! I was just thinking about your mother! She's so fat, isn't she, Weasley?! Weasley! Oi! Weasley!"

"Just ignore him, Ron," Hermione said through gritted teeth, though it must have been more for her benefit than Ron's, as he had entered that rather unique state where all concentration was focused on getting everything remotely edible within ten feet of him inside his stomach as quickly as possible, which most people considered to be through the mouth but Neville knew that the day Ron mastered the art of inhaling chicken wings through his nostril he would be truly unstoppable. While in this state, Ron Weasley's body seemed incapable of such trivial functions as listening or breathing.

"Oh! Any wonder your family is so poor! She eats all the food! She's so fat, you see! Weasley! Oi, Weasley! Did you hear what I said?! Weasley! Your mother, she's so fat! Do you want to know something, Weasley?! Weasley! I shagged her, Weasley! That' right! Did you hear what I said, Weasley?! I shagged your fat mother! She was rubbish! Weasley! Oi, Weasley! Your mother's so fat! Did you hear what I said, Weasley?! Oi! Weasley! Your mother- ACK!"

Malfoy's shouts were cut out by Hermione attempting to beat him to death with a chicken wing. Ron looked up for one moment, possibly only because he sensed that something edible had been snatched from his immediate vicinity, before returning to his meal.

Hermione slid back into her seat once Snape had come over to try and stop Malfoy from crying so much.

"Honestly, Ron!" she said hotly.

"Wha?" Ron asked, opening his mouth, which caused a giant lump of whatever he'd put in there to fall out again. It hit the table with a _thud_ that caused one first-year to scream.

It was then that Madame Pomfrey entered and strode up towards Dumbledore, whose eyes had glazed over and was currently living in his world where elves danced around, pigs flew and Slytherins and Gryffindors were civil to each other. His snapping out of his dream world was noticeable by the virtue of his eyes starting to twinkle.

Madame Pomfrey looked worried, which naturally caused Hermione to become frantic.

"Has something happened to Harry? Where's Harry? Is he hurt? Oh, if something's happened to him I will never forgive myself!"

"I'm sure Harry's fine," Ron said, displaying a rare moment of tact that had everyone around the table looking slightly shocked.

"Voldemort wants him alive so he can kill him personally. He's probably just been abducted or something," he added.

The Great Hall echoed with the sound of the hands of a hundred Gryffindors striking their foreheads.

At that point Dumbledore rose from his seat. He held his hands up for silence, and even the currently bleeding Draco Malfoy obliged.

"Please remain calm!" he announced. "The saviour of our world has been kidnapped by forces unknown; presumably forces that intend to torture him to insanity before granting him the slow, merciful release of death." He paused to allow several members of the student body to faint dramatically and proclaim their lives to be over. Hermione wailed. "Have no fear, our own forces will mobilise soon. But first, there is a delightful bit of cheesecake with my name on it."

Dumbledore sat down and proceeded to eat said piece of cheesecake (and he took his sweet time about it too).

Hermione, meanwhile, was not reassured by Dumbledore's promise of action.

"Oh, Ron, I never told him I loved him!" she wailed, burying herself in the unusually long arms of the aforementioned Weasley.

By far the most striking thing about Ron was the fact that he was very tall and very thin. His arms were so long his hands swung somewhere close to his knees. His red hair remained and his freckles were everywhere. No matter how far he rolled up his sleeves or his shorts the offending freckles seemed to carry on. The female population had once wondered if Ron was freckled even in his most personal area.

Dean Thomas, who was famous for having no concept of personal space, had told them yes.

"Hermione, didn't you tell him like twelve times a day?" Ron asked.

Needless to say, Ron was not much use when it came to comfort though. At least his arms were long enough to wrap the whole way around Hermione though. Due to her _assets_ no other Hogwarts student could muster it. Hagrid could though. Then again, Hagrid made a living out of mollycoddling the most ferocious magical beasts to roam the planet and persuading them to help out with mundane tasks like pulling carriages and cleaning windows. He was relatively uninterested in something as harmless (if perhaps a little bit mentally unstable) as a hormonal teenage girl.

"That's not the point, Ron!" she snapped. "I meant I never said it _and_ had him say it back."

"Well, I suppose we could try and rescue him," Ron mumbled. Hermione leapt out of Ron's arms.

"That's a brilliant idea, Ron!" she exclaimed. Ron looked rather pleased with himself.

"I thought of it all by myself, you know," he said, puffing his chest out.

"But where to start?" Hermione asked. For a moment Ron looked horrified that he might have to actually have to think his idea through, but Hermione began pacing. Ron breathed out, glad that she was apparently thinking the idea through herself.

Hermione's eyes lit up.

"I know!" she announced. "To the library!"

Ron insisted on banging his head off of the table four times before he would follow her.

The rest of the Great Hall continued dinner as if nothing had happened. They were used to Harry and/or Hermione making a scene at dinner. Many of the student body believed them perfect for each other, if only because they both over-reacted to everything.

###

Neville put aside his homework and returned to his favourite pastime: looking for Trevor. He had often considered getting a tank or something for keeping Trevor in, but he didn't want to limit Trevor's freedom to wander Hogwarts as he saw fit.

Actually, now that he thought about it, didn't owls eat toads?

He was saved from this terrible thought when Hermione came in; followed closely by Ron (who had probably never looked more fed up in his life). She picked him out quickly enough, before storming over to him. On the way she sent a group of first years sprawling.

"Neville!" she said breathlessly. "Can I talk to you?" Neville nodded. Several girls at the next sofa (who had been planning just such action for about an hour now) glared at Hermione.

"Neville, I need your help," she said, dropping onto the same seat as him. It was an armchair, so there wasn't exactly much room. She was practically on his lap.

Ron stood two feet away staring into space with his arms hanging limply at his sides.

"Why me?" Neville asked. "I mean, you have Ron." He glanced at Ron, who had not moved and appeared not even to be breathing.

"Oh, yes, Ron," Hermione muttered darkly. She looked up at Neville and suddenly brightened up. "But what I really need is a hero and your hair so soft."

Neville was suddenly aware that Hermione was actually now straddling his lap and running her hands through his silky soft hair. The girls at the next sofa were currently practicing their pronunciation of the Killing Curse.

"I – I use conditioner and everything," Neville managed to choke out. Hermione lowered her face as close to Neville's as she could, which was not very close as her ample bosom was squashed against Neville's chest.

"So, will you help me, Neville?" she asked. Her voice was so husky and sexy. How could he say no?

But first he had to pay a quick visit to the bathroom, to deal with some, er... guy issues that the proximity to Hermione's legendary cleavage may have caused.

"Why don't we ask Malfoy?" Neville said. His face was all red and he was slightly out of breath, but he was feeling much better about the whole scenario. "He's the expert on all things Death Eater."

"Good idea. He'll be hanging about inside the boys' toilets about now," Hermione said. Neville looked questioningly at her.

"Oh, Malfoy... he hangs about in toilets," she explained. "Yesterday he was in the girls' toilets. We actually had a rather meaningful discussion about eyeliner."


	3. NN: Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

The first part of The Neville Trilogy

_**NEVILLE NUMQUAM**_

_chapter three_

_alas poor steve, we barely knew ye_

Neville felt rather pleased with himself as they walked down the corridor. Hermione and Ron stood at either side of him, their steps falling slightly behind his. This made him the spearhead of their formation, much as Harry usually was. He could understand why Harry liked being there too. It felt good.

He was just thinking about what kind of nickname he should give them (something like _The Golden Trio_, only not quite so stupid) when they arrived at the bathroom Hermione had mentioned.

They went in and saw that Malfoy was standing in the middle of the room pouting. When he saw the three Gryffindors enter he suddenly went even paler than usual and cowered.

"Oh, Merlin!" he screamed. "It wasn't my idea! I swear! They made me do it! DON'T HURT ME!!!"

While Malfoy cowered in the corner they discussed options.

"We could just kill him," Ron suggested.

"But then we'll never know where Harry is," Neville pointed out.

"Yeah, but then Malfoy would be dead."

"And then Harry might die. And you'd be in Azkaban."

Ron held up his hands. "All valid points, but I think you're missing the point of my argument. _I don't like Malfoy_."

"I had guessed that."

"Him being dead would be quite nice, actually."

"Shut up, Ron."

"So nice that I think that, when the Aurors show up, I shall tell them how happy I am that the bastard is dead! I might even do a little song and dance number, if the mood strikes me."

Neville decided that the best course of action would be not to involve Ron in the discussion.

"Hermione, I have a plan," Neville whispered to her.

Neville quickly explained his plan to Hermione while Ron plotted how best to end Malfoy's miserable life. Neville's plan involved Hermione unbuttoning the top few buttons of her shirt and bending over in front of Malfoy and politely asking where Harry was and maybe wiggling a bit. Ron's plan involved rather creative use of a pair of pliers.

"Malfoy Manor, they're keeping him in my room," Malfoy said, not even looking away from Hermione's cleavage. "Here's my key to the front door. Some dog treats to distract my hellhound. If you'll excuse me..."

He rushed into one of the cubicles. This was followed by much moaning and groaning.

"Oh God! Give it to me, you filthy Mudblood!"

Malfoy looked terrified when the realised that Hermione, Ron and Neville were waiting outside the cubicle for him.

"You're coming with us," Hermione said sternly. "So there's no funny business."

Malfoy crossed his arms and smirked. "And if I don't?"

"Then we'll let Ron do whatever he wants to you?" Hermione told him. Malfoy looked at Ron, who grinned.

"Turn around and bend over, Malfoy," Ron commanded.

###

When Harry woke up he wondered why Madame Pomfrey had decided to redecorate the Hospital Wing. The old decor of everything in plain white had been so nice, too. Now there were so many mirrors he was almost sure he was sleeping in the room of someone in love with himself.

That was when someone walked in. Madame Pomfrey looked a tad more feminine than she had the last time he'd seen her...

And a bit more blonde...

And a bit more Lucius Malfoy-y.

Actually, it was Lucius Malfoy.

"Ah, Mr Potter," Lucius said with a smirk. "Thank you for gracing our humble abode with your presence."

"WHY DO YOU ALWAYS PICK ON ME WHY CAN'T YOU DEATH EATERS GO CHASE AFTER SOMEONE UNIMPORTANT LIKE RON I AM SICK OF ALL OF-!!!?"

"_Silencio_!" Lucius whispered harshly. He smirked. "Much better. Now that you're awake I'll chuck you in the dungeon."

"Why didn't you just chuck me in the dungeon when I was asleep?" Harry asked. Lucius looked somewhat surprised that Harry had regained the ability to talk so quickly, but he recovered.

"Well, then what kind of a host would I be?" Lucius asked.

###

They decided to go by train, because, for some reason, it seems perfectly normal that a train from Hogsmeade station leaves at midnight and heads straight for Malfoy Manor. They'd gone and fetched various supplies for their journey. For Ron this included a chess set.

For Hermione this had been a fifth-year Hufflepuff called Steve. For some reason she had insisted he wear his red shirt.

"Why are we bringing him?" Malfoy had demanded.

Hermione shrugged. "You never know when he might come in handy."

The train eventually ground to a halt outside what looked suspiciously like Count Dracula's castle. In the background there was a flash of lightning.

"What a cheerful looking house," Neville had remarked.

Malfoy scurried forward and pushed the front gates open.

"If someone other than a Malfoy tried that, he'd be turned into a giant pizza," Malfoy said.

"That just sounds ridiculous," Ron remarked. "You don't get visitors much then, do you?"

They made there way up towards the castle. It was quite a pleasant stroll, despite it being three in the morning and that a fair bit of barking seemed to be being done.

"Run! RUN!" Malfoy screamed, before proceeding to take his own advice to heart and pegging it for all he was worth. Hermione ran forward, arms flailing about.

"What a _stupid_ day not to wear a bra!" she muttered to herself.

Ron followed, using his Quidditch-toned legs to gain the advantage. Neville brought up the rear... actually, whatever happened to Ste-?

Ah.

Yes.

He's being eaten by the dogs.

And he isn't exactly doing it quietly.

The other four reached the manor and burst into the hallway. They gasped and panted as they fought to control their breath.

"Oh, poor Steve," Hermione moaned, before breaking down and wailing. Neville was surprised when Malfoy tried to comfort her, though actually he was trying to cop a feel. Ron gently removed him from Hermione by punching him in the face. Neville, instead, offered her a pat on the back.

"He was a good man!" Malfoy said once he'd stifled the bleeding. There was a long pause before Hermione's sobbing stopped.

"Actually, who was he? I'd never met him before tonight," she asked.

Ron shrugged.

"Come on, we may as well get to my bedroom before the Dark Lord shows up and commences with the anal rape," Malfoy said.

Malfoy's house was like a maze. He kept making turns almost at random. At several points he seemed to stop and decide what direction to go. Neville could have sworn he was lost.

"Draco, my love, how long until we get your room?" Hermione asked, so eager she was bouncing up and down a bit. This did not exactly do wonders for Malfoy's concentration.

"Would it, by any chance, be the room over there labelled _Draco's Room_?" Ron asked; pointing to a door they'd walked past at least four times.

"Aha! Yes, um, I knew it all along!" Malfoy exclaimed, looking unusually pleased with himself.

They went into the room, which was empty. Though, by the looks of it, until recently someone had been sleeping in the bed. Such a person had left copious amounts of raven black hair behind.

"Oh, we'll never find him!!" Hermione wailed. Malfoy made his way forward to offer his comfort in the form of two arms outstretched with his hands squeezing the air eagerly. Neville beat him to it by patting her on the back again.

Neville wondered how he'd ever had so much trouble with girls before he became gorgeous. This was easy. All you had to do was be pretty and occasionally pretend to care when they over-reacted to something.

Suddenly there was a knocking on the door.

"Draco, darling, is that you in there?" a woman's voice asked.

"Er, um, YES MOTHER!" he shouted back. "Don't come in!"

"Is everything all right? I heard some girlish screaming!"

"Er, I was just... um... I was just masturbating!" He grabbed Hermione and Neville rather roughly and pushed them into the wardrobe.

"_Why didn't you shove Ron in?" _Neville hissed, but Malfoy must have missed it as he shut the door on him regardless.

Neville struggled to listen to what was happening in the room outside, but it was fruitless. Hermione's breathing was far too loud.

"Neville," she breathed.

Neville looked at her. Which was pointless, really, as it was pitch black in the wardrobe.

"I think you're _delicious_," she whispered.

"Wha -?"

Suddenly a pair of lips were on his, a pair of breasts were crushing into his chest and she was on his lap. Her hands quickly found his hair and pulled him closer as he tried to pull away. Neville felt like he was about to suffocate until the door finally swung open and light flooded onto their situation.

"Hermione!" Ron exclaimed. "What's going on?"

"NO!" Hermione shrieked. Neville had enough time to hear Ron scream before the door slammed shut again and his lips were assaulted again.

"Hermione," he gasped when she finally broke the kiss; moments before the flow of oxygen to Neville's brain was completely shut down. "I'm sorry, but I don't -!"

"I love you, Neville!" Hermione sobbed. "Make love to me! Right here in Draco Malfoy's cupboard!"


	4. NN: Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

_A/N_. There's not been a lot of response to this. I always intended to keep going anyway but I'm a little disappointed guys. Any feedback would be nice. It's been a while, but here are two chapters to make up for my lack of updates.

The first part of The Neville Trilogy

_**NEVILLE NUMQUAM**_

_chapter four_

_the consequences of silencing charms_

As soon as Malfoy shut the wardrobe door he realised his mistake. That bleeding eejit, Weasley, was still standing there! And his doorknob was turning.

His mother entered the room with her cloak flowing majestically behind her back. She looked at Ron and then at Draco.

"Draco, love, what is going on?" she asked. Malfoy wandered over to Ron, trying to think on his feet.

"Well, mum, you see..." he began. "I was indeed pleasuring myself. It's just that... he was... helping me."

His mother raised an eyebrow. "Helping you, dear?" she asked.

"Yes, this is..." Malfoy slung his arm around Weasley's shoulder. "My lover, Ramon."

"Your lover?"

"He doesn't speak any English," Malfoy said quickly. "But he is a stallion in the sack."

Malfoy was vaguely aware that Weasley had never looked so likely to kill someone.

However, his mother's face had softened. "Ah, like father, like son," she said. "Your father always did have a weakness for redheads. I'll leave you two to it."

She left, closing the door behind her. Almost instantly, Malfoy's arm snapped away from Weasley.

"So, Malfoy, how would you like to be destroyed?" Weasley asked.

"Shut up, Weasley," Malfoy snapped. "I did what I had to do to get us out of a sticky situation. Now get Longbottom and the Mudblood out of my wardrobe."

Weasley complied. He opened the wardrobe...

"Hermione!" he exclaimed.

There was a shriek, and Weasley stumbled back from the wardrobe having received a scratch to his face that was now bleeding rather a lot. He failed to take it like a man by screaming and grabbing Malfoy's bed-sheets to try and stem the flow.

"No, you inbred fool!" Malfoy squealed. "Those are worth more than your entire house!"

"Is something wrong, dear?" His mother had poked her head in again. "I heard screaming."

"Oh, nothing, mother," Malfoy said, snapping upright. "Ramon just likes it rough sometimes. You know what these foreigners are like."

###

It took the combined efforts of Ron and Malfoy to pry Hermione away and allow Neville to start breathing normally again. He took a few minutes to catch his breath while Hermione proceeded to over-react to Ron's injuries.

"Oh, Ron, my darling," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry. Here, I'll clutch you to my ample bosom and the power of my love will heal you."

On the whole Hermione's plan didn't exactly heal the cuts on Ron's face. In fact, it was Malfoy's wand that healed the cuts. But Ron was certainly a good deal happier than he had been before.

"So, if Harry's not in your room then where is he?" Ron demanded when Hermione had calmed down.

"He'll probably be in the dungeon," Malfoy said offhandedly. He looked confused by their expressions. "What?"

"You have a _dungeon_?" Ron asked in surprise.

"Well... yeah." Malfoy looked a little put out. "Doesn't everybody have a dungeon to, you know, keep any unruly servants and mortal enemies that might be visiting in?"

###

Meanwhile, somewhere far away and seemingly unrelated.

"Sirius, stop humping my sofa!"

The offending large black dog whined at Remus, who rolled his eyes. He'd reluctantly agreed to Dumbledore's request to allow Sirius to use his room to visit Harry whenever the young boy had injured himself yet again. Of course, Harry had gone missing, yet again. So Dumbledore had told them to hide in the room where Sirius was violating his furniture, _yet again_.

"I was in prison for a long time, and this sofa is soft and has nice curves," Sirius groaned, having turned back into his human form.

"So now what do we do?" Remus asked, sitting down on the sofa beside Sirius.

"Dunno," Sirius replied. "We could go look for Harry."

The two sat in awkward silence for a moment.

"I have a bottle of Firewhiskey in my desk," Remus said. Sirius was silent for a moment longer.

"Yeah, let's do that instead."

###

While Sirius and Remus got suitably wrecked the heroic foursome continued their quest through Malfoy Manor to try and find Harry.

The dungeons themselves were pitch black and Malfoy had insisted they use as little magic as possible so as to avoid being detected. Instead Ron and Neville were carrying various large torches.

"Right, we'll have to open all the doors to find him," Malfoy warned. "So, be prepared for some things that you may find disgusting."

They learnt quickly that Lucius Malfoy had decided to decorate some of his cells differently. The first few were fairly plain with just a set of chains hanging on the wall and no bathroom. A previous prisoner had been forced to relieve himself in a corner, and apparently the House Elves had "forgotten" to clean it up. Hermione screamed when she thought she saw it moving.

Another room appeared to be a chamber filled with the various supplies one might need for a massive bondage orgy.

The next room was actually designed like a hotel room.

"Malfoy, this room looks better than my house," Ron said. He'd sat on the end of the king size bed to admire how soft the mattress was.

"Weasley, the cell where the prisoner had shat in the corner was better than your house," Malfoy snapped back. "Let's keep moving. We need to find Potter soon."

"Yeah, but this bed is sooooooo soft," Hermione said, poking it with her finger. "Can't we just stay here?"

"MOVE!"

Hermione and Ron did a fair bit of huffing and puffing as Malfoy led them out of the room. Neville stayed a moment to admire the room and steal the chocolates off of the pillows.

At last they came to the right cell. They opened the door to see Harry slumped down against the wall with his arms in chains. Hermione had squealed with delight and run over to hug Harry. Harry tried desperately to gasp for air whilst Hermione sobbed into his chest.

"Er-me-knee," he choked out.

"Let him go, Hermione," Neville tried to tell her. "He's turning purple."

"Oh, Harry, we've come to save you!" Hermione squeaked.

"What took you so long?" Harry growled.

"Harry!?" Hermione gasped in shock.

"What's wrong?" Harry demanded. He looked furious.

"You're angry but... you're not shouting."

Harry glared at her. "Malfoy used a silencing charm on me, but I can still talk normally. Although my voice isn't as loud as it used to be. I'm worried people won't be able to hear me."

"Oh, _Harry_," Hermione moaned in sympathy. "I'll undo the charm now." She raised her wand to end the spell but Neville snatched it off of her.

"Actually, it might be better to just leave him like this for a while," Neville reasoned. "I mean, it would be easier to sneak out without him shouting all the time."

Hermione sucked in a deep breath.

Harry cringed in anticipation.

Malfoy cowered.

Ron's right index finger inexplicably found its way up his nostril.

"HOW CAN YOU DO THAT TO HARRY??? AFTER ALL HE'S DONE FOR YOU YOU'RE JUST GOING TO LEAVE HIM LIKE THIS??? YOU'RE DESTROYING HIS SPIRIT AND CRUSHING HIS SOUL AFTER HE'S LOST HIS PARENTS AND VOLDEMORT'S TRYING TO KILL HIM AND ALL HE EVER WANTED WAS TO BE LOVED!!!"

Hermione gasped for breath while Neville stood there, shocked.

"But... I lost _my_ parents," Neville pointed out. "I grew up with my grandmother, remember? And Voldemort's trying to kill pretty much everyone, so that's hardly unique to him. And, in case you hadn't noticed, Mrs Weasley loves Harry more than her own children; Dumbledore constantly shows favouritism towards Harry at the expense of other students; Hagrid would die for him; Professor Lupin is quite fond of him too; Ginny Weasley would drop her knickers at a moments notice if Harry asked her to; Ron treats him like his favourite brother; your love for him burns with the intensity of a thousand suns; and even Snape begrudgingly respects him."

"Not to mention his escaped convict godfather who's quite fond of him too," Ron pointed out.

"So, Harry is not unloved; he's more loved than me at any rate. People aren't constantly picking on him either. Since first year he's broken more school rules than any student in Hogwarts History and has never even been suspended. The worst he's ever gotten was 50 points taken off at one stage. So you and him can cut out this whole _Oh, woe is me, nobody loves poor Harry Potter_ act because it's all bullshit and we're all fed up with it!"

There was a long silence.

"Neville," Hermione whispered at last. "I want to have your children." She had a look in her eyes. It was a look the likes of which Neville had never seen before. Sure, girls had looked at him with admiration sometimes. Some had even stared longingly at him with barely suppressed lust. One girl had even got herself off in the Common Room watching him doing his homework. But no girl had ever given him a look that so plainly said that he wouldn't be keeping his trousers on for much longer... whether he liked it or not.

"Hermione!" Harry exclaimed. Hermione turned her attention back to Harry. This gave Neville a glance to gulp and edge towards the door.

"Hermione, something wonderful just happened," Harry told her. "A few seconds ago, when you showed an interest in another bloke, I tried to force myself to shout and unwittingly made my testicles finally descend. Anyway, I just realised that I've loved you every second since I first met you, six years ago when you first sat down opposite me and gushed like a fangirl whenever you found out what my name was."

"Oh, Harry!" Hermione squealed, throwing her arms around him. "I love you! Now we can be together and have lots of kids and name them after your dead parents and we can grow old together and you can die first in my arms, because, well, men tend to live shorter than women and then I'll try to go on without you but probably just wind up jumping off a cliff because I can't go on without you and then we'll be in heaven were we can have sex all day and all night because we'll be young and fit again."

Harry was utterly speechless for a second or two. "Awesome," he finally said.


	5. NN: Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The first part of The Neville Trilogy

_**NEVILLE NUMQUAM**_

_chapter five_

_dun dun dun!_

Harry soon found out that all was not well. Hermione refused to let him kiss her. She kept rambling on about how it needed to be "the most special and wonderful moment of their lives." Ron had to drag Harry out of the room kicking and screaming because he'd decided he'd rather hang about in the dark and sulk.

"Right, that's the hard bit done," Malfoy said, quite clearly unfamiliar with Murphy's Law. "Now all we have to do is leave."

"What's the best way to get out?" Hermione asked. Malfoy's first response was to blink.

"Er... through the front door," he replied. He quickly remembered himself and added, "You filthy Mudblood."

Harry grabbed him roughly and slammed him into the wall. Everyone was quite surprised that someone of Harry's stature could manage this.

"Listen here, _Malfoy_," Harry spat. "That's my girlfriend you're talking to. So you'd better show her some respect or I'll cut off your knob and use it to pleasure a dog before I give it back by stuffing it down your throat and choking you. Clear?"

"Crystal," Malfoy whimpered. Harry released him.

"Now, Malfoy, what do you say to Hermione?"

"I'm sorry, Granger."

Harry glared at him.

"I'm sorry, _Hermione_?" Malfoy suggested. Harry was still glaring quite intensely. "What, how can I be more respectful than that?"

"Find a way," Harry growled.

"I'm sorry, _Hermione_, the most beautiful witch in the whole world and goddess of all things related to cleavage. May I please lick the dirt from between your toes to show how sorry I am?" Malfoy said, looking thoroughly disgusted as he did. Ron was in tears.

"This is the best moment of my life," Ron wept.

"Yes, as amusing as this is..." Neville began. "I think we'd better get going before any dark wizards show up and notice Harry isn't in his cell anymore."

The party agreed and made their way out of the dungeon, up the steps, through fourteen corridors Neville didn't recognise and into a parlour none of them had ever seen before.

"We're lost, aren't we?" he asked.

"I hate my house," Malfoy groaned. "I wish I lived in some shack like Weasley's so I wouldn't get lost so much."

"What do you do if you're getting up in the middle of the night and can't find a bathroom?" Neville asked.

"My ancestors thought of that. Approximately thirty-eight percent of the rooms in Malfoy Manor are bathrooms... or so I'm told. The place is so big no one's even pretended to try counting in like a century."

Neville looked at Malfoy, expecting him to look smug or to at least make a snide remark about Ron's mother. He did neither. In fact, he looked thoroughly depressed.

"So, where to now?" Neville asked.

"Pick a corridor and walk in a straight line in the hope that we eventually find the exit or at least a room we recognise," Malfoy said.

###

There was only half an hour's walk before Malfoy found somewhere he recognised. It was an armoury.

"Oh, now you're just taking the piss," Ron announced. "An armoury? Don't you think that's a bit much for a family dwelling in the middle of England and miles from any kind of civilization?"

"I think we ought to take a few weapons," Malfoy said. "Just a few swords and the like."

"Did your father teach you how to use a sword?" Neville found himself asking, imagining that that would be the sort of thing that a father would do.

"Nope," Malfoy replied. "The only things he ever taught me usually involved creative ways to gain sexual gratification from Muggles." Neville suddenly felt very awkward. What on earth could he say to that?

"My Great Uncle Algie taught me to fish," he decided upon.

"Excellent. We'd better hurry up, before Weasley manages to get hold of something sharp and injures himself," Malfoy's response was.

###

Unfortunately, Ron did find something sharp. And, upon find such an object, he decided to follow his natural instinct and insert it in his nose. It just happened to be a spear.

Neville was somewhat worried that Ron might actually have driven the spear all the way up his nose and into his brain (assuming that there was, in fact, a brain up there). If such a thing had happened Ron would probably be dead.

Hermione then proceeded to help in her own special way. She clutched Ron's limp body and, predictably, thrust Ron's face into her chest. Harry did not take this well.

"Get off my girlfriend!" he snapped, dragging Ron's body away from the typically sobbing Hermione and beating it around a bit. Normally Harry wouldn't have stood a chance against someone of Ron's size, but as Ron was probably dead at this point then Harry had the slight advantage.

Much to Malfoy's disappointment, Ron turned out to be alive.

Neville and Malfoy each chose fairly plain looking swords, made of steel. Harry favoured one made of gold, which was far too heavy to be practical and probably not sharp enough to cut butter. Ron had picked up the spear that had a tip coated in his own blood and snot. He'd also pulled out a menacing sort of thing that Hermione had tried to explain was a sort of Muggle wand, only made of metal and the only spell it could perform involved hurling bits of metal at you really fast.

Hermione whined that weapons were barbaric and insisted she would have nothing to do with them.

Malfoy was able to find his way towards the Entrance Hall. They arrived on a balcony overlooking the front doors, where Lucius Malfoy was currently greeting the Dark Lord Voldemort in the traditional Malfoy manner, which involved plenty of grovelling and kissing of feet.

"Oh drat," Neville muttered.

"What do we do?" Ron whispered.

"Could we sneak around them?" Neville asked. Malfoy shook his head.

"As far as I know this is the only exit. And even if it wasn't, how the bloody hell would I find any other exit anyway?" Malfoy snapped.

"HEY GUYS, WHAT ARE YOU WHISPERING?"

"Harry! You got your voice back!" Hermione squealed.

"_Silencio_," Neville hissed. Harry opened his mouth to apologise but Ron apparently doubted the effectiveness of Neville's charm work, because he clapped a hand across Harry's mouth.

"What was that?" Neville heard the darkest wizard for a century ask from the landing below.

Then Harry bit down on Ron's hand. Ron gave a somewhat less-than-manly shriek, which surely alerted Lord Voldemort to their presence.

"It's Potter!" Voldemort roared. "Death Eaters! Seize him!"

"Oh double drat," Neville snapped.

The Death Eaters raced up the stairs towards them. Neville promptly stepped forward, with his sword in hand and totally unaware of how to use it properly. He figured he was holding it right, so he might be able to bluff them a little.

"Run!" he called to them. "I'll hold them off!"

Malfoy didn't need telling twice. He turned and fled at the first opportunity. Harry gave a roar of outrage and stepped forward with his massive gold sword. For a moment the Death Eaters on the steps slowed, until Harry attempted to flourish the blade and dropped it. There was a moment of hesitation on both sides before Harry turned and bolted for it himself. Hermione quickly followed, screaming for Harry something about how she would sacrifice herself for him if necessary. Ron was busy fussing over where Harry had bitten his hand. He then noticed that it was just him and Neville against about fifteen Death Eaters. He carefully weighed up his options in the space of about half a second and promptly ran off after the others.

"Oh, silly little boy," one of the Death Eaters cackled. "Bow before the might of the Dark Lord, and we might show you some mercy."

"No," Neville replied firmly.

"No?" the Death Eater repeated, seemingly dumbfounded.

"That's right, no," Neville assured him. "You see, once you have felt the wrath of my sword you will be the ones begging for mercy."

"You do realise that we have wands, right? We can just cast a simple disarming charm and then kill you."

There was a moment while Neville noticed the tragic flaw in his plan.

"Triple drat," Neville muttered. He threw the sword as hard as he could at the Death Eater, hoping to buy himself a few precious seconds.

There was a bit of a commotion as the other Death Eaters tried to remove the sword that was currently embedded in their colleague's face. Fair play to the lad, he wasn't making a big deal of it. In fact, he was keeping quiet and letting his mates get on with it.

Meanwhile, Neville sprinted down the corridor after his friends.

He thought he could hear Hermione's shrieks up ahead at one point. He was so sure he was gaining on them when suddenly a figure stepped out from behind a statue and tripped him, sending him sprawling across the floor. He coughed and tried to drag himself to his feet, only to feel a boot on his back pushing him into the ground.

"Ah, young Master Longbottom," Lucius Malfoy's characteristic drawl said from above him. "So, you like to play with swords, do you?"

There was a thump as Neville's sword was driven into the ground beside him, still wet from the other

Death Eater's blood.


	6. NN: Chapter 6

**DISCLAIMER: Based on situations and characters created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

The first part of The Neville Trilogy

_**NEVILLE NUMQUAM**_

_chapter six_

_the death of lord voldemort_

When we last left our hero, he had a Malfoy standing on his back and a sword stuck in the ground beside him. Things had not exactly much improved. At least now he was standing, but now he had Lucius Malfoy blocking his path and behind him a horde of angry Death Eaters was surely making their way towards him.

"So, you like to play with swords, do you?" Lucius drawled.

Neville decided the best course of action would be to drop to his knees and shake his head.

"Get up!" Lucius snapped. "Draw your sword and we shall spar." He dropped into a crouch that let Neville know that Lucius certainly knew more than him and probably was going to die soon. As Neville raised his sword, he pondered a list of things his regrets in life...

Most of his regrets seemed to centre around helping Hermione and Ron when he could have just let Lavender Brown have her wicked way with him when they were looking for Trevor.

He raised the sword and swung it for Lucius' head with all his might. The older man easily ducked under it and spun his sword around behind him to make a rather sizeable slash in Neville's left arm.

"Ah!" Neville gasped, deciding quickly that he didn't care much for this situation.

Neville tried the swing-for-the-head tactic once again. This time Lucius parried instead and took a slash at Neville's right leg, which buckled when the blood started flowing. So Neville found himself on one knee and facing a man who could quite easily kill him.

"Come on, I'll give you one more free shot," Lucius said. "Just to make it sporting."

With a cry Neville thrust forward, not concerned with the head but aiming for Lucius' black heart instead. Unfortunately the thrust went well wide and saw Neville crashing into the wall and landing in a heap.

"You know, this almost doesn't seem sporting," Lucius said. "To kill you like this." For a moment he pretended to look thoughtful. "Ah well." He raised the sword to deliver the coup-de-grace.

Neville shut his eyes. He decided he'd rather not look.

Suddenly there was a loud _BANG!_ Neville was somewhat relieved. He'd expected his death to be somewhat more painful than that, though perhaps not quite so loud.

It was then he opened his eyes and discovered he was not dead, that Lucius Malfoy was in a heap on the floor and that the contents of the man's head had been used to redecorate the wall behind Neville.

Standing there with a big grin on his face and his Muggle weapon was Ron Weasley.

"Class," Ron said.

Neville rose to his feet with as much dignity as he could muster.

"I had it totally under control," Neville said. "If you hadn't have turned up, I would have killed him."

"I know," Ron replied. "From where I was standing I could see that your master plan of cowering in fear and whimpering was working _really_ well."

Neville narrowed his eyes. "Shut up. Let's just find the others."

They ran straight off in the direction the others had run, and somehow managed to wind up back in the Entrance Hall. Harry, Hermione and Malfoy were surrounded by Death Eaters who were jeering and taunting them.

Ron was about to sprint forward with his Muggle weapon waving in the air when Neville hauled him back.

"Right, let's think about this before we do anything," Neville said.

They stood there for ten seconds.

Then Ron shrugged and leapt over the banister and down into the middle of the Death Eaters, where Malfoy kindly broke his fall.

Neville slapped a hand to his head. Thankfully the Death Eaters failed to notice, as they were busy now taunting Ron.

"_Honesty, Ron_!" Hermione said hotly. "How could you possibly have expected that to work?"

Suddenly Voldemort emerged from the crowd of Death Eaters to face Harry. Hermione and Ron both stepped in front of Harry. Malfoy tried to roll into the crowd.

"If you want to get to Harry you'll have to get through us!" Hermione said. Voldemort paused for only a second.

"Okay," he answered. He quickly used his wand to stun Hermione, and turned to Ron, who whimpered and cowered away. "That's what I thought," Voldemort said smugly.

Voldemort and Harry stared each other down, neither willing to so much as blink. Neville looked around frantically, hoping to find some way of creating a distraction.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort hissed. "I have waited a long time for this. You have wronged me so many times, and now you've killed Lucius as well."

"NNOOOOO!" Malfoy shrieked. "That's impossible!"

"It's true, though," Voldemort said calmly. "He was a valuable boot-licker. I will miss him greatly... well, not really. I have so many followers to show blind devotion to me. I'm sure I'll survive without one."

He raised his wand and pointed it squarely at Harry's head.

"And now I'll have to survive with one less enemy."

Neville was totally lost for ideas. He'd decided that his only option was to jump off the banister with his sword swinging and hope he got Voldemort. He was halfway there when Ron provided another distraction. His Muggle weapon had fired and blown a hole through the shoulder on the nearest Death Eater. As Neville clambered up onto the banister the _BANG!_ went off and caused him to lose his balance, sending him crashing to the ground. He groaned, almost certain he'd broken some bones.

He opened his eyes and gazed upon the carnage. Malfoy apparently blamed Harry for his father's death, and the pair were currently rolling around on the ground trying to choke the life out of each other. Ron was firing his weapon at random into the crowd of Death Eaters. The weapon eventually stopped firing, instead just making clicking sounds. Ron took it in his stride and pulled his wand out instead, sending all the foulest and most nasty curses he could send at them.

Neville drew the sword and mustered strength he didn't know he had. He thrust it forward without really thinking and drove it straight through Voldemort. The Dark Lord's red eyes widened in shock as he registered what had happened. For a moment Neville locked eyes with the most powerful dark wizard in a century.

"No," Voldemort hissed. Neville released the hilt of the sword, and Voldemort stumbled backwards. He hit the ground, causing the blade to push out of his stomach slightly.

The Death Eaters reacted by utterly panicking and running away as fast as they could. Some sprinted into the mansion, others towards the doors. Neville let them go; he only had eyes for Voldemort, who was now struggling for breath. He wheezed and rolled over to cough up some blood. Harry had enervated Hermione so she could bury her head in his chest and weep.

"He was so young," Hermione sobbed. "Oh, Voldemort, we will miss you!"

Harry offered a consoling pat on the back. Ron was too busy examining his Muggle weapon to notice. Malfoy was curled up in a ball and crying by himself.

Voldemort struggled for one breath as he did every other. Neville waited for the next breath, but it never came. Voldemort just laid there, his eyes locked upon Harry's and yet seeing no more.

"Is it over?" Neville asked.

"Is what over?" Ron asked, looking up from the task he was engrossed in, which involved testing if the unknown Muggle weapon was any more suitable for insertion in the left nostril than the spear had been.

Harry seemed utterly livid.

"This isn't fair!" he exclaimed. "_I_ wanted to be the one who killed Lord Voldemort!"

"You can kill the next Dark Lord, Harry," Hermione tried to reassure him. This took five minutes and involved her rather subtly pressing her ample chest into him.

"So, we can leave then?" Ron said. "Come on, Malfoy, lead the way out of here." For the sake of emphasis (as well as amusement) Ron delivered a swift kick to Malfoy's midriff.

Malfoy eventually got the front doors upon. The group were about to walk triumphantly towards the horizon when suddenly they heard a hiss from behind them.

"You fools! Did you honestly believe a mere sword would kill me?"

Slowly the five teens turned around to face Voldemort, who was now standing upright with his wand pointed straight at them.

"_Yes_!" Harry hissed and pumped his fist. Everyone looked at him for a moment. "Well, now I get to be the one to finish him off."

"Oh, do you really think so?" Voldemort asked. "Because, I have a little wand here that will disagree with you. _Avada -!_"

"Look!" Neville shouted, pointing behind Voldemort. Neville's cunning plan worked, as Voldemort turned around to look behind him. Neville turned and fled, not even looking to see if the others were following.

Voldemort continued to stare straight at where Neville had been pointing.

"Perhaps, this is not my finest moment," he admitted.


	7. NN: Chapter 7

**DISCLAIMER: Based on situations and characters created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

_This is the last part of NN, watch this space for the next part of the Neville Trilogy_

The first part of The Neville Trilogy

_**NEVILLE NUMQUAM**_

_chapter seven_

_revelations_

Neville opened his eyes as slowly as he could and took in his surroundings. He was lying in a bed in the Hospital Wing. His injuries had all been healed fairly well. He wouldn't even have any scars thanks to Madame Pomfrey, who had conveniently been hanging about outside the gates of Malfoy Manor along with Dumbledore and a squad of Hit Wizards from the Ministry of Magic.

Now Harry was lying the bed beside Neville, and Hermione was on the other side of Harry. Ron was immediately opposite Harry, and Malfoy was on his left, making him opposite Neville, in effect.

Neville was the only one awake. That quickly changed.

"What did I break this time?" Harry groaned as he came to.

Neville heard a chuckle, and it was only then that he noticed Dumbledore was there as well.

"Professor Dumbledore!" Harry exclaimed. "What's happened?" Dumbledore waved a hand to shush him.

"Have no fear, Harry, this is that joyful time of the year when I reveal yet another little one of your life's mysteries to you," Dumbledore assured him. "But first, I wish to congratulate you all. After all, you managed to fight off quite a number of Death Eaters and trick Lord Voldemort. I think that fifty points each for Gryffindor should suffice."

Malfoy gave a cry of outrage.

"By all means, Mr Malfoy, Slytherin may have some points as well," Dumbledore said fairly. "Let's say, oh, a point for Slytherin."

"_A point_?" Malfoy hissed in outrage. His plight was ignored.

"As I was saying, now that Lucius Malfoy is dead and the bodies of many Death Eaters have been discovered, things are looking up a bit," Dumbledore went on. "Now, Harry, do you have any idea what a wizarc is?"

"It sounds like you've just changed the last letter of the word _wizard_ and then pretended it's a real thing," Harry replied flatly.

"Not quite," Dumbledore said with a twinkle in his eye. "A wizarc is an extremely powerful wizard capable of casting immensely powerful spells and even resisting some minor spells."

"If they're so great how come they have such a gay name? Couldn't they have called themselves something cool, like the Ultra Mega Uber Magicians of Doom, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers?" Harry asked.

"Oh, oh, oh!" Hermione was squeaking from her bed, with her hand waving in the air.

"Ah, Miss Granger?" Dumbledore said.

"Is this related to Harry?" she said breathlessly. "I mean, is that why whenever we cast a silencing charm on him he isn't silenced; his voice just gets a bit quieter."

"Oh, good Lord, no!" Dumbledore said. "Harry's wizarc powers won't have materialised at all yet. They won't until he turns seventeen in the summer. The particular effect the silencing charm has on his voice is because his voice is so abnormally loud that a simple silencing charm is not enough to completely quiet him."

"So can we keep the charm on him for a while?" Neville pleaded.

"Oh my, yes. I daresay it might help him grow an actual personality."

"So, what does it all mean?" Hermione asked. "I mean, what will happen if Harry is a wizarc?"

"Well, Harry is not the only wizarc here," Dumbledore said.

Ron perked up.

"Really?" Hermione asked.

"Yes, one of Harry's very dear personal friends is also a wizarc," Dumbledore confirmed.

Ron looked about ready to die of happiness.

"Why, Mr Longbottom here is also a wizarc," Dumbledore said.

Ron collapsed backwards on the bed.

"In fact, he's probably an even more powerful wizarc than you, Harry."

Harry looked utterly furious.

"But he's an idiot!" Harry snapped.

"He may be an idiot," Dumbledore began. "But I think we can all agree one thing... he looks _delicious_."

There was a long awkward silence, which was interrupted only by Malfoy's muttering of; "Only one bloody point. Weasley murdered my father and got fifty!"

###

It was almost a week later whenever a mysteriously regal looking owl swept out of nowhere to deliver a letter to Harry.

"Hang on, it's addressed to Harry _and_ Neville," Hermione pointed out.

Neville just happened to be standing the general area.

Ron was threatening to jump out a window if people didn't start paying attention to him soon. Hermione gave him a slight wave to pretend she cared about whatever Quidditch team he was talking about now.

"It's from Sirius!" Harry exclaimed.

_Dear Harry and Neville,_

_I have great news. Wormtail was captured today. He went into a Muggle pub to the use the bathroom, and unfortunately for him the entire Auror department was in having a bit of a piss-up in the middle of the afternoon. So, anyway, that means I'm free now! Yep, Wormtail basically confessed to everything on the spot._

_Anyway, now I can finally marry that fox Augusta Longbottom. We'll be getting married in the summer. I'll be adopting you Harry, naturally, so that'll make you Neville's uncle. How cool is that?_

_Love,_

_Sirius_

_PS. We'll have a little shed in the back garden... the kind that resists nuclear blasts. For Remus, you see._

"What's a nuclear blast?" Ron asked.

"_Honesty, Ron_!" Hermione exclaimed hotly. "It's a Muggle thing!"

Harry seemed utterly gobsmacked.

"Augusta's your Gran, right?" he asked at last.

"Yep," Neville squeaked, looking a bit sick himself.

Hermione was laughing her head off. Ron had mysteriously disappeared.

It was going to be an eventful summer...

_To Be Continued in the next exciting instalment of the Neville Trilogy_

NEVILLE DEXTEROUS


	8. ND: Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

_A/N: _None of you asked for it. None of you wanted it. In fact, you'd probably have been better off had it never happened, but here is part two nonetheless.

A returning hero (sort of), a Death Eater with a vile plot, and a Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher from Harry's past with a dark secret you'll totally never be able to guess. The epic Neville Trilogy continues...

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter one_

_obligatory train journey_

Draco Malfoy awoke suddenly from his dream, drenched from head to toe in sweat. He'd had this horrifying nightmare, where Granger had become hot and forced him to aid in rescuing Potter from the clutches of Lord Voldemort, which had inadvertently resulted in the death of his father. And now she had insisted that she come with them to a Weasley family dinner to celebrate the return of whatever runt had been in some other country.

It was, with horror, that he noticed an arm draped around his waist and that someone was pressed into his back, with hot breath in his ear. He turned his head slightly and discovered that his nightmare was not, in fact, a dream, and that he currently had a bed-mate to prove it.

Ron Weasley, who had murdered his father, was spooning him at this very moment.

Malfoy swore loudly, and elbowed Weasley rather roughly in the stomach.

"Hmmm, Harry, don't be so rough," Weasley groaned.

Malfoy managed to remove himself from Weasley's iron grip. He dashed as fast as he could for the bathroom. He had grown up in a house where pretty much every other room was a bathroom. Now he was staying in a house where in every other room there was someone who would kill him if he woke them up. He got the wrong room twice, which lead to much cursing in his direction, before he gave up and decided he would throw up in whatever room he picked next.

He got lucky and found the bathroom. Within minutes Granger had wandered in and began stroking his hair as he emptied his stomach.

"Oh, Draco, my love, how horrible for you," she sighed.

Malfoy had tried many times to stop her from using his first name. He hated it. Only his parents ever used Draco, and he'd liked it that way. Even his best friends (in other words, his hired goons) in Slytherin called him Malfoy.

"Up yours, bitch," he choked out.

"Oh, Draco, my darling, you're delirious!" she gasped, before trying to press her chest into his back. It was certainly not helpful to have an erection whilst vomiting.

###

The Weasley's annual trip to Platform Nine and Three Quarters somehow always managed to be a frantic, rushed affair. Once Molly had even tried getting them all up at the crack of dawn, but the plan had gone to hell when an eight-year-old George had gotten hold of a wand and flooded the top four floors, but left the bottom ones curiously dry.

Today there were many issues. One of them was Malfoy, who was refusing to get in the back seat of the car with Fred and George. His suspicions about the pair's intentions had been aroused due to the fact that they did not actually live at the Burrow and they most certainly were not going to Hogwarts this year. Molly Weasley, however, was having none of it. As far as she was concerned, Malfoy would sit where he was told to sit.

Another problem was Hermione, who was insisting on sending owls off to Harry every hour. However, Harry took about three days to reply, so now all the owls the Weasley's owned were at Sirius' house and they were out of Floo Powder, so Hermione was running about like a lunatic and trying desperately to come with some way of communicating with Harry.

Ginny Weasley, however, was glad with all the delay. She had been up since dawn trying to look as beautiful as possible. She'd been studying in France for the last year, and so hadn't seen Harry in so long and was determined to look absolutely stunning when he first saw her...

It wasn't that she resented Hermione (aka _the skank_). But she believed that the relationship was doomed to failure. Harry would never be able to handle sharing the attention with Hermione, perhaps the only person on earth more prone to hysterical over-reaction than he was.

So, whenever the relationship turned tits up, Ginny hoped that Harry would turn around and there would be his sweet, caring, sensitive, drop dead gorgeous friend, and Harry would sob into her beautiful shoulder before eventually having beautiful sex, making beautiful children and then spending the rest of their life together, shagging twice a day.

Unfortunately Ginny was well aware that she was not a particularly good looking girl. She was terribly skinny, pale, freckled and flat-chested. Her mother had assured her that she would grow out yet, but until then Ginny may as well have been the seventh boy in the family.

She'd applied, removed and reapplied her make-up so many times. When she eventually came down the stairs she'd been at it for about four hours.

Malfoy had been shouting at Ginny's mother up until this point, but now was looking very much like a dog who had caught sight of a very large, juicy joint of meat.

Ginny's mother, however, was not impressed.

"Ginny, that make-up is totally inappropriate," she scolded. "That red lipstick makes you look like a scarlet woman!"

Ginny, however, had waited her whole life for Harry to react to her appearance the way Malfoy was now. She was not prepared to give up the new look without a fight, but soon her mother was trying to force a set of robes five sizes to big over her head.

Incidentally, her mother did not think, _"But then Harry can't see my legs," _was a valid reason not to have to wear the robes.

Ginny was fairly upset the whole trip to Kings' Cross, and was stuffed in beside Malfoy in the front passenger seat. Now that Hermione was in the car, Malfoy was utterly uninterested in looking at Ginny anymore.

They arrived at the station in the usual flurry. Her mother grabbed her by the arm and practically threw her through the barrier, causing her to stumble and land in a pile. Ron quickly followed, coming crashing down on her. She managed to scramble to her feet, totally winded.

Hermione came through shortly after, and was bouncing up and down on her feet trying to find Harry.

"Oh God, what if he's not here? What if the Dursley's beat him all summer and locked him in the cupboard again and won't let him come to Hogwarts?" she wailed.

"Oh, if only," Malfoy muttered.

"Hermione, he'll be fine," Ginny said, feeling that her chances of being noticed by Harry might be better if Hermione was not running about shrieking. "He stayed at Sirius' all summer. You just get to your prefect meeting, and I'll find him and make sure he's alright."

Being reminded about her prefect duties distracted Hermione long enough for Ginny to get onto the train. She managed to find a compartment to herself, and quickly pulled off the robes her mother had forced upon her to reveal her previous outfit. A tight fitting black tee and short, white skirt. She quickly reapplied the lipstick her mother had taken off, and went to find Harry.

Ginny eventually found Harry in a compartment with, predictably, her brother. She cursed for a moment. Ron could ruin everything! Her first course of action had to be to get Ron out of the picture.

She took a few calming deep breaths before stepping into the apartment. Neither of the boys even looked up from where they were playing chess.

Ginny personally thought that they could do with another pastime. All they ever seemed to do in their spare time was play chess constantly. You'd think they would read a book or something...

"Ron," Ginny said as calmly as she could muster. "There's a dog in the hall. I think it's done a big poo."

Ron looked up from his chess game, totally perplexed.

"So?" he asked.

"Well, don't you want to go look at it?" she asked.

Ron stared at her for a few moments longer. Then he shrugged and stood up to wander out, leaving an outraged Harry behind. Harry wasn't angry for long though, as he started switching the chess pieces around.

"Hiya, Harry," Ginny said. Harry looked at her for the first time, and Ginny felt the familiar surge of blood to her cheeks. She sat down opposite him as slowly as she could manage. She'd been rehearsing this for about a year.

"So, Harry, did you miss me?" she asked, feeling out of breath. Harry looked blank.

"Er... why?"

"Well, you know, I was in France for a year," Ginny explained.

"Oh," Harry said, before turning back to rigging the chess game. "I never even noticed you were gone."

Ginny suddenly felt the tears welling up. Desperate not to cry in front of Harry, she burst from the room with a sob. She pushed past several people to get to her compartment, where she curled up into a ball and wept.

A whole year and he hadn't even noticed she was gone? She'd thought about nothing else.

She was there for a while. The trolley lady poked her head in at one point, and she had a feeling Malfoy had come in, demanded to know where Granger was, then left. But other than that she was left alone to her misery.

Until someone arrived and sat down opposite her.

"Er, Ginny?"

Ginny looked up, rubbing the tears out of her eyes, and gasped.

"_No, I must be delusional. It can't be."_

"Ginny?" Neville asked.

"Oh my God, you're bloody gorgeous," Ginny gasped. She suddenly clapped her hand to her mouth. She couldn't believe that Neville Longbottom, that tubby little boy who'd taken her to her first dance, was now this unbelievably handsome young man sitting in front of her.

"Er, are you alright?" he asked.

"_Oh my god, he actually asked me if I'm alright. And he's perfect. Oh, kiss him. The lips are exposed. Go for the lips!"_

"I'm fine, thank you," she managed to say, feeling her grin cutting open her cheeks.

"Why were you crying?" Neville asked.

"Oh, you know," Ginny said, giving a sigh. She rested her chin on her hand to look at him.

"Ginny, you're drooling."

"_Shit! And any second now he's going to realise I've drifted off and been daydreaming about how he and I will be married and have lots of kids and.... Oh, he's staring, with those beautiful brown eyes. Oh, Ginny, please, say something! Say anything!"_

"Impregnate me."

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"_Bravo, Ginny Weasley. Bravo."_

"Shut up, brain!" she snapped. Then she realised, to her horror, that she had said it out loud and slapped a hand across her mouth in shock.

"Er, Ginny," Neville began. "That's fairly flattering and all, but I'm afraid that I'm not really looking for anyone to have any of my children just yet."

Ginny removed her hand just long enough to add, "I'll take birth control then," before she replaced it and decided that tonight would probably be as good a night as any to hurl herself off of a cliff.

"That's nice, Ginny," Neville said. "All the same, maybe we should just be friends." There was something about the way he said it that told her he was very sceptical as to whether even being friends was a good idea. Ginny felt like crying again. First she'd messed up with Harry, and now Neville.

"Look, I'll talk to you later," Neville said, getting up to leave. "I was just in the middle of my prefect duties and thought I'd make sure you were alright."

Neville left, leaving Ginny feeling rather hot and bothered. She began to fan herself with a copy of the _Daily Prophet_.


	9. ND: Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter two_

_the sorting hat's new song_

Ginny continued to stare mournfully out the window for much of the journey. Eventually they pulled up to the train station in Hogsmeade, and Ginny shot up from her seat. If she got it right, she might be in a carriage with Harry or Neville.

She hit the jackpot and wound up in a carriage with both of them. Unfortunately, Hermione was also in the carriage at the time. She was practically sitting on Neville's lap the whole time (_the hussy_)and Harry did not look very pleased about it.

Ginny was glad when they pulled up to Hogwarts. It not only meant Hermione had to get off of Neville's lap, but also that she would get to see Hogwarts for the first time in a year. A part of her felt that she ought to be making a bit more of a deal out of this.

"Ginny, come on, hurry up," Ron said. Ginny gave a start. She had not even noticed her brother in the carriage. It was probably quite a feat for someone so unnaturally large to remain so unnoticeable like that. "The feast will be starting soon."

"Oh, Ron, Dumbledore has announcements to make first," Hermione said, bouncing up and down. "I wonder if he took my suggestion and started having classes on Saturdays. Oh, it's pointless to waste a day on just relaxing or playing Quidditch when we could be studying! Don't you agree Harry?"

"Just keep bouncing up and down, he'll probably agree to anything you say," Ginny mumbled. She looked at Neville, who was thankfully unaffected by Hermione's movements. Perhaps he'd grown immune to them over the last year. He turned to look at her, and she smiled at him.

"Ginny, stop staring at Neville," Ron said. "People will start to think you're a scarlet woman."

Neville, to his credit, looked utterly gobsmacked. Ginny blushed furiously and punched Ron squarely on the nose. She had to stretch a bit for it, and Ron barely seemed to react to the blow. She turned and fled towards the Great Hall, giving a loud sob as she did. There, she ran smack into Snape. The collision knocked her backwards and she hit the floor.

"Miss Weasley," Snape sneered. "Is this your uniform?"

Ginny noticed now, to her horror, that she was still wearing the outfit she had put on to impress Harry, which included a short skirt that Snape could probably see up from his vantage point. She quickly scrambled to her feet, her face burning. She'd never felt so embarrassed in her life.

"It is fortunate, Miss Weasley, that Gryffindor have no points to lose for this blatant disregard of the school dress code. You can take comfort, however, that you will have a detention with me tomorrow night. Now, you must sit through the whole feast dressed like," the pervert actually took a moment to look her up and down, "_that._"

Ginny felt so embarrassed as she walked through the Great Hall. She could feel hundreds of eyes burning into her. She looked up...

Actually, no one was looking at her.

She spun around. Not a single person seemed to have noticed her coming in.

She felt the anger rising. _How dare they not ogle a scantily-clad young girl in her moment of shame!_

She sat down between Neville and Harry. Hermione arrived moments later, having just got back from the teachers table where she was already looking for extra assignments. She looked at Ginny, for a moment, and then decided to squeeze in between Ginny and Neville.

There was a bit of a scuffle, but somehow Harry still wound up sitting beside Ginny. Ginny was growing fairly fed up of Hermione by this stage. So was Harry, by the looks of it.

"Does anybody want to have sex with a famous person?" Harry asked the Gryffindor table. Parvati Patil lunged at him across the table. Seamus tried desperately to stop her.

"No, Parvati! I took you home to meet me mam over the summer," Seamus pleaded.

Seamus' attempts to reason with a crazed Parvati were interrupted by the arrival of the first years. They somehow looked smaller and more fragile than ever before.

In front of them was the Sorting Hat, who had taken a rather different approach this year.

"_Smart arses in Ravenclaw,_

_Shifty-looking bastards in Slytherin,_

_Brainless loonies in Gryffindor,_

_The fat, ugly ones in Hufflepuff._

_Come on, sort yourselves!"_

The Hat looked down at the bewildered first years expectantly. There were whispers throughout the entire hall. Everyone was looking at Dumbledore, who seemed unconcerned with this development and was instead staring dreamily off into space.

McGonagall cleared her throat loudly. Everyone in the hall stopped, and the Hat looked up at her.

"_Oh, do I bloody have to? It's not like there'll be any consequences of my actions. It's Potter's seventh year. Obviously the Dark Lord's going to attack this year, and unless our saviour can focus on something besides Miss Granger's rack, I'm afraid we're screwed."  
_

McGonagall, however, continued to glare at the Hat.

"Adams, Charlie," McGonagall announced. The Hat did not look pleased.

The bewildered first year sat there while the Hat muttered to itself before proclaiming, "HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Brooks, Helen!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Bulstrode, Philip."

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Cox, Claire."

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"I see a trend developing," Ron muttered.

By the time they had reached, "Trent, Marvin," the Hat didn't even wait for the poor boy to step forward to announce his House. Several youngsters had not taken the news well.

"No, I must be a Slytherin!" one boy screamed as McGonagall dragged him towards his new house. "It is the only way I'll be able to take my place at the side of the Dark Lord!"

Eventually, after all the tears and tantrums, the Sorting was finished and Filch carried a grumbling Hat away. McGonagall took her seat beside Dumbledore. Everyone looked at the old man, waiting for him to say something. McGonagall gave him a sharp poke, and he snapped out of his revere.

"Yes, yes, welcome to Hogwarts!" Dumbledore announced, standing up. "I have but a few words to say before the feast begins. And those words are..." He raised a finger, then suddenly his face fell. His eyes darted back and forth across the room.

"Blast, I've forgotten the punch line of my bloody joke," Dumbledore said. Snape lowered his head into his hands, and everybody in the hall laughed.

After the feast, Dumbledore rose again.

"Now that we've all eaten our fill," he began. "There is time for a few announcements. First, I am delighted to introduce our new Potions Master, Professor Severus Snape."

"You bludgering old coot!" Snape barked at him. "I'm the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. You promised me the post the year Potter finally got thrown out!"

"Ah, and may I introduce our new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who wishes to make a dramatic entrance."

The doors of the Great Hall swung open, and all of the girls (and a few boys) gasped suddenly.

"Allow me to introduce Professor Cedric Diggory," Dumbledore said. Ginny blinked a couple of times. Then she pinched herself. But still, the gorgeous young man making his way through the centre of the Hall did not vanish.

"Christ Almighty," one of the other girls in her year whose name was unimportant whispered to her friend who was also unimportant. "He's even more gorgeous than I remember."

"Back off," Hermione snapped. "He's mine!" She turned around and pouted at Cedric, who strode calmly up to the table as though he didn't notice the number of people ogling him.

"Now, I know I'm not the shiniest pebble on the beach," Ron said. "Normally the world more than three inches away from my own nose tends to confuse me. But I'm sure that he died."

"I watched him die," Harry said. "It was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. How could they take this away from me?"

"I elected not to join you for your feast," Cedric was announcing to the student body. He licked his lips. "I find that the food of mortals does not... satisfy me anymore." He licked his lips again. He took a seat beside Professor Snape, and began leering at several students. Snape began leering at Cedric.

"So, he's a vampire then?" Neville asked, looking around the table. "Figures. I suppose we've already had a werewolf teaching here twice, it was only a matter of time before..."

"DON'T BE SILLY!" Hermione shouted at him. Everyone looked taken aback. As far as Hermione was concerned, a mealtime without going off about something was a mealtime wasted, but it had been a long time since Neville had been her target. "Dumbledore is wise and powerful. He wouldn't put students in danger by hiring a vampire. Besides..." She turned back to look at Cedric. "He's gorgeous."

Cedric probably heard the exchange, if the kiss he blew towards Hermione was any indication.

"Well, if he didn't bloody die the first time, he's bloody in for it now!" Harry growled, rising to his feet and grabbing the nearest available weapon, which happened to be a spoon.

Dumbledore continued to make the announcements, which largely involved what Filch threatened to do to anyone who didn't wipe their feet before coming into the castle, while several people at the Gryffindor table tried to restrain Harry. In the end it was Lavender Brown who grabbed Harry by the collar and slammed him back into his seat. Harry continued to look sullen while Dumbledore dismissed them.


	10. ND: Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations pulled from some blonde's arse**

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter three_

_(head) boy issues_

Hermione had been a nightmare as a prefect. As Head Girl she was almost a tyrant. She spent the first few nights charging around the room shouting at anyone who was not studying. She confiscated several chess sets (including poor Ron's, who was reduced to tears by the whole affair), hundreds of gobstones and countless Exploding Snap cards before a rather clever fourth year pointed out that she was wasting time trying to get them to studying when she could be studying herself.

For her NEWTs she seemed to be studying every subject possible. She was studying Divination by reading the text book so she didn't have to go to classes, and several people swore that on Thursday she had been pleading with Dumbledore to allow her to sit her Muggle A level exams.

The Head Boy was Justin Finch-Fletchley, if only because the Hogwarts board had wanted the most stuck-up wanker imaginable for the Head Boy. Harry had produced a series of badges that all read _"The REAL Head Boy," _but they were continually being confiscated by McGonagall whenever she caught him trying to take House Points from various students.

"Ten points from Hufflepuff!" Harry shouted. "For being late to class."

"Mr Potter, please sit down," Cedric said calmly. "And I'm not in Hufflepuff any more, so you can't take points off of me."

Cedric had a rather interesting choice of decor for his Defence Against the Dark Arts room. The windows had all been boarded up and covered in a black material. Everything else in the room was black, it was fairly sparsely decorated, bats hung from the ceiling, and behind his desk rested a large, black coffin.

"Right, students," Cedric said, taking a seat on the edge of his desk. "I will be teaching you Defence Against the Dark Arts for the rest of this year. In this very room you will learn about creatures far more terrifying than you can possibly imagine."

"What about Lord Voldemort?" Harry asked. Almost everyone in the class gasped. Neville rolled his eyes. He'd spent the whole summer with Harry, and was used to him suddenly standing up and shouting something about Voldemort.

Cedric winced.

"Okay, maybe you can think of some things more terrifying," Cedric admitted. "But I still expect many of you to piss your pants at some of the creatures you'll see here."

"Will we be studying vampires?" Ron asked, looking rather pleased with himself.

"Vampires?" Cedric hissed, suddenly going rigid. "I'm not a vampire. No sir. Not little Cedric Diggory. I definitely have not joined the ranks of the army of the night. Nope. Not me."

Neville glanced around the class, and felt rather let down by the fact that most of the class looked totally convinced Cedric was telling the truth.

The lesson turned out to be about werewolves. Hermione answered every single question, including the question Cedric called upon Lavender to answer. After that Lavender stopped bothering to put up her hand.

"I don't trust him," Harry said to Ron as they left. "I'm sure he's a Death Eater!"

Cedric had obviously heard that. He looked rather amused by the statement as well.

Neville pondered several of his classmates while he ate his lunch. There was Lavender Brown, who this year seemed totally uninterested in throwing herself at him in the way she had last term. Right now she was eating what appeared to be raw bacon. He wondered if it was some new diet she was on. It was doing wonders for her figure. She seemed to have gained a fair bit of muscle over the summer.

Then there was Hermione, who looked suspiciously like she was flirting with Professor Snape. He was having none of it, of course. That girl had issues.

Harry was busy telling the second years all about how he had stormed the Malfoy Manor single-handed and killed Lucius Malfoy. They all looked up at him in awe. He looked fairly pleased with himself. He was another one with problems to sort out.

Ron had problems as well. Right now he was alternating between staring at a plate of chicken wings and a plate of Shepherd's Pie. Neville was reminded of the story of the donkey with two bales of perfect hay that starved to death trying to decide which one to eat first.

Draco Malfoy appeared to be plotting something with the Slytherins. Neville wondered if perhaps it was a bit short-sighted of the Sorting Hat to arrange it so that every evil wizard had lunch at the same table.

And finally there was Ginny Weasley, who was sitting beside him and had been staring for the last ten minutes. She probably deserved some recognition for managing to not blink the entire time.

"Hello, Ginny, what do you want? Apart from the obvious answer of _to have my children_."

Ginny flushed and turned to look at her plate, before muttering a few things. Neville was about to get up and leave when she finally worked up the courage to speak.

"How are you, Neville?" she squeaked. Neville gave her a smile.

"I'm very well. How was your day?"

Her eyes widened.

"No one's ever asked me that," Ginny said. Neville was sure that someone must have asked her how her day had gone at some point in her life. What she meant was that _Harry_ had never asked her that before. Harry seemed totally oblivious to Ginny most of the time, not that that seemed to discourage her in any way.

Neville was well aware that even talking to her might start giving her the wrong ideas. But he had grown so used to having Lavender throwing herself at him that he probably wouldn't mind if Ginny started doing it too. She was a lovely girl, after all. And she wasn't too bad on the eyes. Oh, she was nowhere near as outrageously hot as Lavender, and she certainly didn't have the cleavage of Hermione or the freakishly nice legs of Millicent Bulstrode (God had given the poor girl a hideous face, but her legs... oh, they were incredible).

Maybe there was something about her. Her freckles were kind of cute, once you got over how they covered pretty much every inch of visible skin. Her hair was always well looked after, and she had a nice flowery scent about her. Yes, one could do a lot worse than Ginny Weasley.

Neville Longbottom could probably do better though.

A lot better.

It was then that Neville noticed that, while he had been having all these thoughts, Ginny had been jabbering away about every little inconsequential detail about her whole life. Neville tried desperately to focus in and listen, but by that stage she was staring at him expectantly. Oh no, she wanted him to say something!

_Quick, take a shot in the dark._

"Life's not fair?" he suggested. To him it sounded poor, but Ginny heard what she wanted to hear and threw her arms around him to pull him into a hug.

"Oh, Neville, no one understands me like you do!"

Neville calmly patted her on the back, wondering what on earth he had gotten himself in for.


	11. ND: Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter four_

_the fourth musketeer_

Neville was quite surprised when he received the message from a first year that he was wanted in Dumbledore's office. He would have thought that, being Headmaster, Dumbledore would have had some sort of system for summoning students, rather than ambushing a random first year and having them deliver the message.

Harry had not been summoned. He had just been standing beside Neville near the time that the poor, quivering first year had approached Neville, and as such had assumed that Dumbledore could not possibly want to talk to Neville and actually wanted to talk to Harry and that the first year was just incompetent and had delivered the message to Neville by accident.

So now they both sat facing Dumbledore, who had not moved since they had come in.

Neville wondered if he had died. That would be most inconvenient. Harry would almost certainly overreact and accuse him of murdering Dumbledore and most of the wizarding world would probably believe him. Neville contemplated this for a moment. Perhaps if he carved a mark in his beautiful, perfectly formed forehead and claimed it was a scar from a dark curse then people might think it was wonderful when he started acting like a total arsehole.

"I suppose," Dumbledore began (either he was alive or his brain had died mid-sentence and it had merely taken his one thousand-year-old lips this long to realise they had wanted to say something). "I suppose you both know why you are here?"

Neville looked at Harry.

"Of course, sir," Harry said enthusiastically.

"Actually, sir," Neville interjected. "I have no idea why we're here." Dumbledore looked expectantly at Harry.

"Okay, I was lying," Harry muttered, now looking fairly annoyed. Dumbledore seemed to contemplate it for a moment.

"Do you ever get the feeling that you simply have too many thoughts to keep in your head?" he asked them. Neville shrugged.

"Perhaps you ought to just write them down," Neville suggested.

"Splendid idea!" Dumbledore exclaimed. He began shuffling through the mountain of parchment on his desk. "I'm sure I must have written it down somewhere."

He took about ten minutes rummaging, during which time he uncovered several girlie magazines that Neville decided to pretend he didn't see (a girl who looked strangely like Hermione seemed to feature on the front cover of one of them).

"Yes, aha!" Dumbledore announced triumphantly. His hand emerged from the pile brandishing an arbitrary piece of parchment. "Here it is. _Dear Professor Dumbledore. We are delighted to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry..._"

"Sir, I think that's the wrong piece of parchment," Neville interrupted.

Dumbledore looked extremely disappointed.

"You mean I haven't been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry?"

Actually he looked like he was about to cry. Neville felt strangely like crying himself.

"You're already the Headmaster," Harry snapped. "Now, come on, start telling me how awesome I am."

"Yes, indeed!" Dumbledore said. "Right, you two are wizarcs." He looked at the two of them for a while.

"We know, sir," Neville replied eventually.

"Yes, yes, quite. And, as wizarcs, you will require special training."

"You mean, like mental magic spells that make Snape's head explode without even saying anything?" Harry asked.

"Oh, goodness gracious, no!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "We can't have that! Why, think of how traumatised the students will be. I know they all love Professor Snape so much, after all."

"Then what will we be learning?" Neville asked.

"Kung fu."

Neville was utterly perplexed.

"You mean Muggle martial arts?" he asked, feeling an eyebrow shooting upwards.

"Awesome!" Harry gasped. "Now I can finally kick Malfoy's ass!"

Harry was fairly skinny and pale, but no one in the entire school managed to look quite as underfed as Malfoy. In fact, Neville often wondered if a little nick by the Bludger might finish him off...

It was part of the reason Neville was a Beater.

"And, naturally, Professor Snape will be overseeing your instruction." Dumbledore looked fairly pleased about all this. Harry looked pleased too. Perhaps it was the thought of beating on a professor for extended periods and pretending he was learning something.

Dumbledore rambled on for a bit before suggesting they go to their Common Rooms before their bedtimes. Neville decided it best not to mention that it wasn't even lunchtime yet and he was an hour late for Transfiguration because of this conversation. Instead he asked about Cedric.

"You know that one of your teachers is a vampire, right?" Neville asked. Dumbledore waved it off.

"Oh, people have been saying that for years. I'll tell you the same thing I told the Board of Governors. Just because he avoids sunlight, garlic and religious symbols does not mean that Severus is a vampire! And he assures me that the blood of innocent virgins he keeps in his supply closet is purely for use in Potion making."

###

"I just don't trust him, Ginny," Neville said at lunch that day.

Circumstance had worked against Neville, it seemed. Back when he had first come to Hogwarts he had been fat, ugly and stupid. Of course he had no friends back then. No one wanted to be friends with someone so unimportant. After fifth year when he had suddenly hit a growth spurt and become the most gorgeous thing on legs, he had expected that everyone would want to be friends with him. However, most people seemed to regard him as the unofficial fourth member of "The Golden Trio." And Harry was very picky about who was allowed to speak to his group.

So, Neville only had the few brave ones like Lavender Brown occasionally following him about. But Lavender seemed to have given up her interest. And these days most people seemed to follow Harry about anyway. He made a lot more noise than Neville and so, despite being so much shorter, was a lot easier to detect. He also didn't object quite as much as Neville did when they took pictures of him on the toilet.

It bothered Neville that so many of the girls seemed to find Harry so attractive. His hair was always a total mess and he hardly ever showered. Perhaps the smell was the reason Ron kept to following him about so much...

On what perhaps might be considered an unrelated note, it was a curious coincidence that another of Harry's friends, Professor Rubeus Hagrid, was another well-documented fan of odd-smelling creatures that could bite your head off...

Ginny was a special circumstance. She was focusing a lot of attention on Neville. He supposed that being the only boy who gave her the time of day might have something to do with this. Maybe some other guys would pay a bit more attention to her if she wasn't so intense when it came to Harry.

"I mean, he's clearly a vampire," Neville said. She nodded along with him. A bit of drool appeared in the corner of her mouth.

Neville made a silent note that he might have to find a new best friend other than Ginny.

Neville sighed and turned back to look at Cedric. He'd told the class that he liked his meat "very rare." His lunch appeared to be pretty much raw. Actually, it was a live rabbit.

Neville suddenly felt very sorry for the poor little rabbit.

"And did you see? Three Hufflepuff first years have already disappeared this month," Neville said. "I mean, I won't exactly miss them, but what if something happens to one of the half-way decent looking ones?"

"Yeah," Ginny sighed dreamily. Neville rolled his eyes and went back to his food.

He really wished she wouldn't stare at him like that. If Harry had ever actually noticed her, even he probably would have been annoyed by it.

While he ate his lunch he tried to make a plan. He had to get it through to her that he was just her friend, and there would never be anything more between them. He couldn't let her keep doing this to herself. She had to be put out of her misery.

But by the time he had finished his lunch he still had no idea what to say to her.

"Er, Ginny?" Neville said. Ginny suddenly perked up, wiping the drool away from her mouth with her sleeve.

"Yes, Neville?" she asked. Neville made the mistake of looking straight into her eyes. Her beautiful brown eyes. So full of hope. So full of love and innocence.

His Y chromosome took over for a moment, and he could picture himself doing the most disgusting and dirty things imaginable to her while those beautiful eyes looked up at him, full of tears and yet begging him to go on...

He suddenly felt fairly hot and bothered.

"Er, nothing," Neville squeaked, suddenly feeling like an awkward eleven year old who'd been hit with a full-body-bind jinx and discovered that it made absolutely _every single part of his body _had gone rigid. He got up and left. He turned back to look at her right before he walked out the door, and started waving like a lunatic. She didn't even look at him.

He couldn't believe it.

_Ginny Weasley_ was playing it cool with _him_!!!

_Oh Merlin. _He had never wanted her so bad.


	12. ND: Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter five_

_kung fu for dummies_

It would be a fairly safe assumption to say that Severus Snape was not particularly fond of any activity which forced him to spend more time than strictly necessary with any of his students. If he thought he could get away with it he would just sit at the front of his class and read a magazine while the delinquents amused themselves. Presumably this would involve much sodomy. Snape supposed kids were into that sort of thing these days.

However, the Board of Governors would probably not take too kindly to such a course of action, so Snape was forced to interact with his students. Of course, if he was going to be forced to speak to the hopeless dunderheads then he may as well try and get a bit of fun out of it.

Two of his favourite targets in recent years had been Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom. Oh, sure, Hermione Granger could be amusing at times, but she was far too easy as a target. Ron Weasley was another prime target for abuse, but most insults seemed wasted on his limited intelligence.

So Potter and Longbottom were always his favourite targets. It had been so much fun in the early years to watch Longbottom in particular melt at the sight of him. Before he had become dreamy, of course.

And young Potter, who had once presented a bit of a challenge to Snape. Now he was just annoying.

So, you might get the feeling that Snape would not be pleased to have to teach Longbottom and Potter Kung Fu. The feeling would not exactly be misplaced.

Snape himself had only ever attended martial arts lessons in the summer after his fifth year, when he had decided that if James Potter disarmed him again then he ought to be prepared to break his nose in eight different places. He had taken three lessons before he had been kicked out when he had "accidentally" cast the Imperius Curse on several students and forced them to attack the instructor for his own amusement. It had served the instructor right. How dare he act as if he was better than Snape...

Luckily, Hogwarts did have its own dojo that the three were able to use. For some reason Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley had decided it was their business and they ought to turn up to practice sessions as well. Snape did his very best to ignore them, though Granger made an appalling amount of noise every time she and Weasley sparred, which inevitably wound up with him getting booted in the soft bits.

"Oh, Ron, my love! I am so sorry. I do not know my own strength! Please, let me kiss it better!"

It was rather hard to concentrate with _that_ going on.

Snape's first instruction for the two boys had been to find clothing that they felt most comfortable in. For Longbottom this had been a pair of tight-fitting leather trousers, a tight black T-shirt and a long black, leather coat, leaving him looking like he was about to star in a Hollywood action film. For Potter this had been a karate outfit that had obviously at one point belonged to his cousin. Snape could see the merits of Potter's choice of outfit. For one thing, the enemy would probably never find the small boy in the mass of clothing.

Snape had adopted a skin-tight black jumpsuit that had gained much appreciation from the females in Hogwarts. By contrast his duelling partner, who was there to make even numbers, was wearing a hospital robe. It was Gilderoy Lockhart.

"Right, I shall begin with a quick demonstration. Then I will begin teaching you a few basics," Snape announced.

The "quick demonstration" involved breaking every bone in Lockhart's body and mending it again at least twice. It helped Snape relieve a lot of the pent up aggression he was feeling, and he was sure it would not attract as much media attention as last year when he had force-fed all of his third years poison and told them they had an hour to brew the antidote before they began forcefully defecating their own intestines.

Then he pitted Longbottom and Potter against each other. Longbottom learnt fairly quickly, and was soon hitting Potter with a wide range of high kicks. Potter was not a quick learner. Most of his attacks still seemed to involve his nails, which Snape suspected had not been trimmed since he had come to Hogwarts.

Snape eventually grew tried of healing Longbottom's face from the scratch wounds and dismissed the pair of them. He wondered how on Earth he was supposed to survive an hour a week for the rest of the year with these imbeciles.

Still, at least he got to take a hundred points from Potter later on that evening when he attempted to maul out Draco Malfoy's eyes.

###

"Look, I got a letter from Harry," Sirius announced happily. He and Remus were having tea in the house they shared with Augusta Longbottom. Augusta had been fairly concerned about Sirius asking Remus to move in. She was well aware that the pair were close, and that, as she was eighty seven years old and asleep for most of the day, it would be fairly easy for the two of them to hide if they were shagging in that shoddily built metal contraption Sirius had put in the back garden. He'd claimed it was for Remus during the full moon, yet it obviously did not serve its purpose as Remus had already escaped twice and eaten the neighbour's cat.

Actually, he hadn't even been a werewolf when he had ripped apart the cat and feasted on the gooey goodness that spilled forth...

Augusta was still asleep when Hedwig flew in and dropped the letter squarely on Sirius' forehead before harassing Remus (the bird was smart. It knew which one of them had the owl treats. Sirius could not be trusted not to transform into a dog and eat them if he was left alone with them). The two read the letter together.

"So, his new Defence teacher is a Death Eater," Remus said.

"I'll never understand why you quit the second time," Sirius said. "I mean, the students didn't care that you turned into a flesh-eating monster once a month. As I recall, most teenage girls do that as well anyway."

"Yes, I am glad to see that your time in Azkaban did not affect your maturity."

Sirius sighed. "Dumbledore offered me the job. I really ought to have taken it. But I couldn't stand the idea of being away from my darling Augusta for so long."

Remus said nothing. He tried to pretend that he did not know what Augusta and Sirius did in the house whenever he left the room for any period longer than three minutes. It was easier to get through life when you didn't acknowledge you were currently sitting in a seat that had been defiled by your best friend and a woman more than fifty years his senior.

"I maybe ought to have taken the job," Sirius said thoughtfully. "Not for me, but for Harry. I mean, I'm the closest thing to a father he's ever had, but with everything that's happened I've barely seen him. First there was the whole imprisoned for murder thing, and then I was on the run. And I barely saw him last summer because of the wedding. I never even got to hear all about his new girlfriend."

"It's Hermione. You've met her before," Remus reminded him. "Muggle-born with bushy hair. You motor-boated her at the reception of your wedding."

"Funny, I thought that was the stripper from the bachelor party."

"She was."

"Ah, lovely girl," Sirius said, feeling it all coming back to him now. "Massive breasts." He sat for a moment, obviously thinking about something. Remus did not need to be a mind reader to know what that something was.

"Excuse me a moment, Remus," Sirius said, standing up. "I'm going to see if Augusta fancies a bit of a tumble."

Remus' selective hearing kicked in, and he reread Harry's letter, paying particular attention to the part where Harry complained that the whole world was against him because Snape had given him a detention for randomly attacking another student.

###

Life was certainly on the improvement for Ginny Weasley. Harry and that hussy Hermione seemed to be having constant arguments these days. They might break up any day now. And yet Ginny strangely found she didn't care. All her thoughts now seemed to be about a very different boy.

"Neville, oh, sweet Neville," she sighed dreamily as she made her way down the corridor with her classmates, none of whom noticed a word she'd said. She didn't mind being left alone to think about him.

He was so sweet. And so charming and handsome too. And when he looked at her she could almost see the love and admiration in his eyes. It made her almost giddy to think that Neville had fallen for her as she had fallen for him.

But she had to play it cool, just like the book she had bought told her (_A Witch's Guide to Enchanting her Man_). That unfortunately meant she wasn't allowed to build a small shrine to him at the foot of her bed, much like the one that had once proudly displayed her two most treasured possessions: some of Harry's hair she'd fished from the drain's of the boy's showers and a pair of his dirty underpants he'd thrown out after a particularly long Quidditch match had forced him to choose between ruining his underpants and having to go to the toilet and risk the Snitch being spotted in the time he was absent.

Ginny smiled as she thought about those underpants. Even if she was now in love with Neville, she could still appreciate the memory of that brilliant day she had obtained them.

Ginny was just rounding a corridor on the fifth floor when suddenly a hand was clapped across her mouth. She tried to scream, but another hand snaked around her waist and pulled her away from her classmates, who all seemed unconcerned about her abduction. She tried to struggle, but her captor was obviously too strong.

_Please, save me, Neville, _she silently pleaded.


	13. ND: Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter six_

_dead and loving it_

It was not the first time Ginny had awoken in a strange room she did not recognise. One time there had been a giant, dead snake that was still squirting blood everywhere and a second year boy covered in blood clutching the diary of the most powerful dark wizard in a century. Another time there had been a load of French people about to sacrifice her to a dark god to enhance their own magical ability, and had been part of the reason she had elected to study her NEWTs at Hogwarts...

Perhaps not the most spectacular idea she had ever had, given her current predicament.

She appeared to be in some sort of run-down shack. All the furniture looked like it had been torn apart by a wild animal and put back together by someone who perhaps had only read about furniture in a book with no pictures. She was tied to the bed, and her captor was sitting at a desk, watching her.

She got a good look at him before he noticed she was awake. He wore long dark robes like those a Death Eater might. His hair was shaved, though the same could not be said of his face, which bore a slight stubble. His most striking feature, however, was the scar below his left eye that cut down his cheek.

"You are awake," he said. "It is about time."

"What are you going to do to me?" she shrieked, trying to struggle against her bonds, but she was bound firmly at both wrists and ankles.

"Oh, I will subject you to tortures you cannot imagine," he hissed. "You will plead for death at the end of it all."

"You won't get away with this!" Ginny spat. "Someone will come rescue me." She silently tried to send a message to Neville, hoping that the power of their love would enable them to form a brief, telepathic link that would allow him to hear her.

She didn't know it, but Neville was working on an essay in the library and didn't really feel like being disturbed.

"I'm counting on it," the man proclaimed arrogantly. He got up and began to pace. "I am betting that when Harry Potter finds his little girlfriend has been kidnapped he will rush down here to save you without thinking, and then the great and feared Death Eater Baron Luther Von Evilly will be waiting for him!" He raised a finger into the air as if he had just made a great proclamation.

"Who's Baron Luther Von Evilly?" Ginny asked.

The Death Eater looked totally dumfounded.

"How is it you do not know me?" he demanded, charging over to the bed and shaking her. "Why, my name is often spoken with as much fear as that of the Dark Lord himself." Ginny shook her head.

"No, sorry, never heard of you," she said. "If it's any consolation, your plan is utter bollocks anyway. Harry won't come and save me. You mark my words. The moment my darling Neville realises I'm missing he'll be down here in a flash, and then you'll be sorry!"

The Death Eater was about to retort, but Ginny was having none of it.

"And then he'll untie me, and we'll kiss and it will be wonderful and then we're going to get married and have lots of children that will all grow up and piss on your grave while we watch and we'll eventually die in each others' arms a hundred years from now at the climax of a passionate love-making session!"

###

Harry Potter was not a happy boy. He was convinced that Cedric Diggory was up to something. Neville had mentioned something about some peasants, er... some Hufflepuffs... going missing. He was sure that it was all part of some Death Eater ploy to get to him.

Yes, Cedric had obviously killed the Hufflepuffs, knowing full well that Harry would work it out. But, he'd be leading Harry right into a trap. Ha! The great Harry Potter would not fall for such a weak plan. He would spring the trap, break free and strike Cedric Diggory down!

And then Hermione would have no choice but to have sex with him.

Her behaviour was really upsetting Harry. At first she had said all these things about how much she loved him but she still refused to even so much as kiss him, insisting that "their love was so pure and that their first kiss would therefore have to be perfect." But she had kissed Neville and Ron before, and she seemed to expect him to sit quiet and say nothing while she eyed up any male in the immediate area who happened to look vaguely human.

At the moment she was very much a fan of staring at Cedric whilst in class. Harry felt like charging to the front of the room and ripping Cedric's throat out with his bare hands. But it was not yet time to spring the trap. He needed more information and more planning.

His opportunity was granted to him when Cedric asked for Hermione to remain after class.

"Hermione, I'm afraid that this work is not up to standard," Cedric told her. Hermione suddenly broke down into tears.

"I'm sorry, Professor!" she squealed. "I've been neglecting my studies. I've starting having lie ins in the morning and last night I even got as much as three hours sleep! Oh, please don't throw me out of the class! I'll sleep less. I'll push my feeble brain until it can't be pushed any more!" She howled and wept, completely unconcerned that the entire class was standing in the doorway watching her.

"That will not be necessary," Cedric said. "Hermione, I think you would benefit more from some, ahem, more _personal_ _tutoring_." He threw her the most obvious wink in the history of the universe.

"Tutoring with snogging?" Hermione asked.

"Er... sure. Why not?" Cedric said.

Hermione's tears seemed to have dried up fairly quickly, and she skipped out of the classroom. Harry let her go, forming a plan in his head.

So that night he and Ron followed Hermione down to detention wearing the Invisibility Cloak. She stopped off at every single bathroom along the way to check her appearance. Luckily she failed to notice when Ron didn't stop and followed her into the bathroom, leaving Harry outside the girls' bathroom with the Invisibility Cloak. Thankfully Ron did not wash his hands after using the toilet; otherwise Hermione might have spotted him.

Finally they made it to Cedric's classroom, though Hermione seemed to have lost her robes along the way and was now clad in a somewhat dubious schoolgirl outfit. Had Harry been Head Boy he would have taken House Points as her top button on her blouse was undone...

So were the next three buttons down as well, actually.

She knocked on the door and stormed in regardless. Harry and Ron made a dash for the door before it slammed shut. Once inside the quickly ducked into the corner where they would be able to see everything.

Hermione practically bounced over to the desk where Cedric appeared to be marking papers.

"Professor Diggory, I've been a _bad_ girl and I'm here to be punished," Hermione said. Cedric licked his lips.

"Oh, you will be," Cedric replied.

"Actually, Professor Diggory," some small Hufflepuff announced from the back of the room. "I'm still here doing detention as well. Should I keep going?"

Cedric and Hermione did not seem to take any notice of him.

"Now that we're alone, my dear, I have something to tell you," Cedric said, standing up and walking around the table. He made a move to brush Hermione's hair away from her neck, but she shot around and his hand unfortunately clutched upon her ample bosom instead. He jerked his hand away as quickly as possible.

"Sir, I have something I want to tell you too," Hermione gasped. "I think you're, like, totally hot."

"That's nice," Cedric said, not really concerned. "You're not too bad yourself. But, oh, the smell of your blood. I catch a whiff of you and it's all I can do not to rip your throat out and feast upon the gooey red goodness that flows forth. Oh, I've lain awake and thought about how many ways I'd like to kill you. Should I slowly drain away your beautiful blood through your neck, or perhaps rip out your still beating heart so that you can watch how I savour it?"

"Aw, that's so romantic."

Cedric blinked.

"What?"

"So, can we make the sexy time now?" Hermione asked, unbuttoning her shirt even further. Cedric shrugged, obviously just deciding to go with the flow.

"Er, Professor?" the Hufflepuff still at the back of the classroom asked.

Hermione, showing all of her usual grace and subtlety, lunged for Cedric's lips. Cedric looked clearly taken aback, especially when Harry suddenly appeared on top of him trying to strangle him. Of course, he managed to shrug the pair of them off fairly easily, but it was a bit of a minor irritation all the same.

"Harry?" Hermione shrieked in surprise. "It's not what it looks like."

"Oh, and what does it look like?" Harry demanded. Hermione opened and closed her mouth several times, but the only sounds she could make were indecipherable squeaks. Harry took a deep breath and tried to count to ten, like that book Hermione had forced him to read told him...

When he thought about the book all he could think about was how he'd had so much trouble reading it while she was flirting with Neville.

"This is so typical of you!" Harry snapped, giving up after six. "You're off fooling around with other boys and you expect me to just sit here like some lemon and wait for you to get tired of shagging everything and then maybe I'll finally at least get a kiss off of you. Well, I'm sick of it."

"_Harry_!" Hermione exclaimed hotly.

"I'M NOT FINISHED!!!"

Even Cedric took a step back. Hermione was starting to cry now.

"Well, I'm tired of you making a fool out of me!" Harry shouted. "We are soooooooo over."

"Harry, please, I love you," Hermione pleaded. She was on her knees at his feet now, pleading with him. Harry looked coldly at her and mustered the most hurtful thing he could think of.

"Well, I don't like you anymore because you're _gay_," he hissed. With that he turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Hermione collapsed with a wail. Cedric made a move to check on her, but he finally noticed Ron was still standing in the corner with what appeared to be a Muggle weapon of some sort.

"Weasley, what are you doing?" Cedric asked. "Don't you know that guns can't kill vampires?"

The gun appeared not to agree with him. Ron fired and the gun made an unholy noise.

And the contents of Cedric's skull made an unholy mess of the wall behind him.

"Does this mean my detention's over?" the Hufflepuff asked.


	14. ND: Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter seven_

_tortures beyond imagination_

Neville knew from experience that gossip in Hogwarts could travel very quickly. He had learnt that the hard way when last year he had turned down Cho Chang's offer of "a quick tumble" to wake up the next morning to a number of similar offers from various members of the male population of Hogwarts. The morning after Harry and Hermione's break up he arrived in the Great Hall to find everyone already talking about the confrontation and the "mysterious" disappearance of Cedric Diggory.

It had bothered him that the student body managed to notice the disappearance of a professor who didn't even eat with them at mealtimes by the next morning and it had still taken him the best part of a week to notice Ginny wasn't following him about anymore. He sincerely doubted that she had the ability to play it cool with him for any real length of time, so the only other solution was that she was probably dead.

It was just typical. You finally got quite attached to the idea of a girl following you around like a lovesick puppy and then she went and died.

Still, he thought he ought to at least see if she was at breakfast before starting a panic in the school. Of course, he couldn't sit through a breakfast without being attacked by Hermione as she wept.

"Please, Neville, let me find comfort in your manly arms!" she shrieked.

Neville had had quite enough of this, and shoved her off of himself. Harry seemed to be ignoring her as well, which Hermione probably regarded as the worst punishment imaginable. Ron either did not notice her antics or did not care about them as they did not involve the revolver he was still carrying about. He seemed to treat the thing with an odd sort of reverence.

Neville eventually managed to get Ron and Harry alone in the Common Room later that evening.

"Ron, I don't want alarm you," Neville said, all the while feeling like nothing save for suddenly finding gold coins in his excrement could possibly alarm Ron. "But I think you're sister may be missing."

"Nah, she's in France studying, remember?" Ron said with a casual wave of his hand.

"Since when?" Harry demanded.

"No, she came back at the start of the year. And no one's seen her all week," Neville tried.

"What? She's back? Since when?" Harry asked.

"What, so she's been abducted by a basilisk?"

"No, I doubt she'd be stupid enough to do that again."

"Trapped underwater by mermaids?"

"That was you."

"I know. Wasn't I awesome?"

"Ron! This is serious!"

"Okay, okay. Let me think."

Neville didn't really think such a course of action was much of a good idea. The Trio was a group where someone as hysterical as Hermione was considered the brains of the operation. He dreaded to think what they would have gotten themselves into if they had been forced to rely on Ron's intuitive thinking when they had faced Lord Voldemort.

"It must have been Snape!" Ron proclaimed at last.

"What possible evidence could you have that it could be Snape?" Neville asked. Ron merely shrugged.

"Well, if I just accuse Snape of everything that goes wrong around here then I'm bound to be right eventually."

"I agree," Harry said. "Snape is obviously working for Voldemort. This isn't Snape's plan. It's Voldemort's."

Harry pulled his Marauder's Map and Invisibility Cloak out of his bag. He no longer bothered to carry around such unnecessary objects like textbooks to his classes, but instead brought the items he thought most useful should the Dark Lord attack him in the middle of Charms. This included the two aforementioned items, a hip-holster for his wand (which he kept in his bag, for some reason), a picture of Bruce Willis (who, Harry claimed, was the expert in fighting bad guys), several knives of varying sizes and a pair of mittens in case it got cold.

While Ron and Harry formulated a half-baked plan Neville tried to come up with a single reason why Ginny would ever be of use to anyone, particularly an Evil Wizard bent on world domination. So far he was drawing a blank.

"Right, and then the third cavalry charges in from the right flank," Harry was saying to Ron, demonstrating using a collection of battle figures he'd pulled from his bag. "Caught completely off guard, the enemy will have no choice but to surrender and free the beautiful maiden."

"But Harry, we're not trying to save a beautiful maiden. We're trying to save my sister."

Neville ignored them. He was too bust focusing on the curious movement of a dot on the map.

###

"I spy with my little eye something beginning with... c."

"You were right. You _are_ subjecting me to tortures beyond my imagination."

"Well, _excuse me_ for trying to find someway to pass the time! Who would have thought kidnapping a young, innocent girl could be so... boring?"

"Well, when Tom Riddle did it in my first year he managed to amuse himself just fine! Sure, he tried to suck out my soul, but at least he didn't make me play stupid kids' games with him!"

Ginny was now at the point where she was so desperate to be rescued she'd settle for Colin Creevey, the only Gryffindor people cared even less about that her (or so she thought. Actually, in the days since she had been captured Colin's voice had broken and he now boasted the sexiest voice in Hogwarts. Sure, those girls had made him wear a paper bag over his head, but when you're Colin Creevey you can't afford to turn down a proposition like the one those three girls had made him).

Ginny was just starting to give up hope on being rescued when the door swung open. Only it wasn't Colin. Or Neville. Or Harry. Or Malfoy, Ron, Justin, Terry, Dean, Michael, Seamus, Cedric, Remus, Sirius, Snape, Hagrid or any of the other men she'd hoped would save her.

It was Lavender Brown.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she asked.

"Ha! I am Baron Luther Von Evilly!" he shouted, standing up to point his wand at her. "This is my secret lair where I have kidnapped this young maiden, and now you too have walked into my clutches. Surrender now and I might go easy on you!"

Lavender just looked straight at him.

"In that case, things might start to get a bit more interesting," she said.

She closed her eyes. When she opened them they weren't quite the same shade of blue they always had been. They were more of a glowing red.

###

Neville's imagination had led him to expect the worst. So it was quite a relief when he reached the Shrieking Shack to find just a man and a werewolf locked in a battle to the death while Ginny was tied to the bed.

The man seemed to be just firing spells off at random. His most successful spell proved to be summoning a plate of food from the kitchens of the Three Broomsticks. That distracted the werewolf for a few seconds.

"Harry Potter!" the wizard exclaimed in triumph. "You have indeed stumbled into my trap, hoping to save your captured friend. Well, Baron Luther Von Evilly has you in his clutches now!"

"You have one of my friends?" Harry demanded, grabbing the man and shaking him. "Is it Ron? Where is he?"

"Um... no, I mean the girl tied to the bed," the Baron said meekly. Harry looked at the bed. Neville silently pleaded with him not to say something horrible that would make Ginny cry.

"Well, have you hidden her underneath Ginny or something?" he asked. Just as Neville had predicted, Ginny started to cry.

"Oh, Ginny, don't cry. He's just being an ass," Neville said. He made a move over to the bed, but the werewolf's head snapped up. Apparently it had finished its dinner. Neville just had time to notice that it had not, in fact, eaten its greens and would not be getting any dessert before he realised that the beast appeared to view him as the _perfect_ dessert.

"Damn," he muttered as he sprinted out of the shack with the werewolf in hot pursuit. "Why did I have to look so delicious? I couldn't have stayed ugly and fat. Noooooooooo. Where's the fun in that?"


	15. ND: Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling**

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter eight_

_negotiations_

"En garde, Harry Potter!" the Death Eater proclaimed, flourishing his wand.

"Ah, a duel with Voldemort's finest!" Harry shouted, drawing his wand as well.

"Look," Ron said, pointing at something in the corner. "Someone's done a poo in the corner."

"Well there aren't any bathrooms in here!" the Death Eater replied defensively, turning around slightly to address Ron. A bad move, as this gave Harry the opportunity to lunge forward and shove his wand into the man's eye.

In the scuffle that involved Harry used many of the basic defence techniques he'd learnt under Snape's tutelage and put his untrimmed fingernails to great use, even managing to rip out the eye that didn't currently have a wand through it.

The Death Eater was blinded, and Harry was rather amused at having an eyeball at the end of his hand.

"Look Ginny, it's Mr Cyclops-Hand!" Harry said, thrusting the offending hand right in front of her face.

"Oh, please won't you just untie me, Harry," Ginny sobbed. "I'll do anything. I'll even let you take my virginity I was saving for Neville."

"Well, that's hardly an incentive to untie you, is it?" Ron asked, looking rather pleased with himself. Harry gave a massive roar of laughter and Ginny found herself crying again.

It was then that Draco Malfoy entered.

"Hello, I just heard there was a Death Eater hiding out here and thought I'd come help," he said.

"Wow, that's really great of you, Malfoy," Ron said, clapping him on the back. "Maybe I was wrong all these years about you being a snivelling maggot..."

Malfoy noticed the man rolling around moaning in agony and clutched his face.

"Damn," he muttered.

"Of course, I probably wasn't wrong," Ron added. "But all the same, it's sort of a nice gesture."

"Shut up and untie me!" Ginny shrieked. "We've got to hurry up and save Neville from Lavender Brown!"

"Look, Ginny," Ron said. "Neville's a big boy. He can take care of himself. And I'm sure Lavender wouldn't try and rape him or anything. She'd always make sure he was consenting."

"No, you ignorant boob! She's a werewolf. If we don't help him he'll be eaten!"

"Oh... cool?"

###

Neville may never have found out just how it would have gone had Ron suddenly not appeared from nowhere brandishing his gun like a lunatic, but he was willing to guess that he would not have wound up drowning in the lake.

It was a rather odd sensation. He'd been dropped in various large bodies of water before. His Great Uncle had done it at least twice a week back when he had thought Neville was a Squib. So the sensation of drowning was nothing new to him. All the same, he kicked and flailed as he had always done. Despite the number of times he'd wound up in a lake, swimming was still not Neville's strong suit.

But somehow he managed to haul himself out of the water again. He spat up water as he crawled across the floor, before he looked up into a pair of dark, soulless eyes that appeared to belong to a skeleton dressed in a black cloak and carrying a scythe.

"Oh no," he muttered.

MOST PEOPLE TEND TO REACT THAT WAY.

"That's not fair! I'm too pretty to die!"

I'M AFRAID IT DOESN'T REALLY WORK LIKE THAT. I COME TO ALL, SOONER OR LATER. IN THIS INSTANCE YOU MAY TAKE COMFORT, AS IT WILL MOST CERTAINLY BE LATER.

"What?"

AS WE SPEAK, YOUR... ASSOCIATES... ARE ATTEMPTING SOME RATHER INTERESTING NEGOTIATIONS.

"Oh, cool... So, what do we do until then? Do you have any deep and meaningful advice for me?"

The skeleton seemed to consider this for a moment.

NO.

"Can I talk to any of the dead people? You know, they might have some helpful hints on how to fight Voldemort."

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

"Well, how am I supposed to kill Voldemort if no one's going to tell me how? The guy is immortal, for Christ's sake!"

I WILL CLAIM TOM RIDDLE IN GOOD TIME. FOR NOW YOU JUST SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP. YOU WOULD DO WELL TO REMEMBER THAT I AM THE ANGEL OF DEATH, WHO HAS TOTAL CONTROL OVER WHEN YOUR SOUL WILL DEPART THIS LAND AND WHETHER IT SHALL BE BOUND FOR THE BEAUTIFUL AND PEACEFUL CLOUDS OF HEAVEN OR THE FOUL SCREAMING ABYSS OF HADES. TRY NOT TO ANNOY ME FOR THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES.

###

"Ron, quickly! Save him!" Ginny was shouting as Ron tried desperately to haul Neville out of the water. Sure, he'd swum all the time as a young child and he'd once hauled a tiny French girl out of the water, but a seventeen year old young man with as much muscle as Neville was a different matter entirely.

Eventually he managed to get Neville out of the water.

"Check his pulse! Is he breathing?" Ginny squealed. The boys were quite glad Hermione wasn't here, or she'd probably be even more hysterical. On the other hand, Hermione might have some vague idea what a pulse was.

"He's not breathing," Ron confirmed.

For a moment Harry, Ron and Malfoy all looked at each other.

"Ah well, such is life," Malfoy said. "I'm off for a spot of Firewhiskey before I go to bed and dream about the rest of you dying horribly painful deaths."

"We have to do something," Ginny snapped at him. She thought for a moment. "Wait! I remember something Hermione told me."

She rushed over to Neville, crouched down beside his body and grabbed his face before shoving it against her own chest. She waited for a moment.

"I don't understand. Hermione said this always works," Ginny wept.

Harry apparently had some ounce of decency in him, because he felt a little sad that Ginny was crying. So, he decided to try that CPR he'd seen in Muggle films a couple of times.

"Right, now I punch him really hard on the chest," he explained as he talked them all through it. He proceeded to give Neville three rather feeble punches. He then needed a minute to catch his breath.

"Now what?" Ron asked.

"Now someone has to snog him," Harry said. They all looked at each other expectantly.

"Well I'm bloody well not going to do it!" Malfoy snapped.

"I'll do it," Ginny said. "Sure, I always wanted my first kiss to be very romantic and everything, and even in my most desperate moments I wanted the boy to be conscious, but if it saves his life..."

Ginny knelt down beside Neville again. She glared at the boys.

"Do you mind?" she hissed. They all suddenly turned away to give her some privacy. Malfoy even made a break for it, but Ron hauled him back. All they heard in the next minute or so was a lot of moaning and lips smacking against each other.

"Harry, it didn't work. He didn't kiss me back. I don't think he likes me."

"Damn," Harry muttered. "I was just starting to like the git."

"Could we not take him to Dumbledore?" Malfoy asked. "I mean, you always run to Dumbledore when something like this goes wrong. Why can't we do it now?"

"Dammit, Malfoy!" Ron shouted, grabbing him by his robes and shaking him. "Think of something!"

Malfoy looked very upset at being shaken in this way, and muttered several things that hinted at this and also alluded to the promiscuous nature of Ron's mother. In the end he drew his wand, pointed it straight at Neville...

"_Avada Kedavra_!"

"HOW THE BLOODY HELL WAS THAT SUPPOSED TO WORK?" Ron roared, smacking him over the head.

"Well, you never know!" Malfoy replied. "It's not like anyone's ever cast that spell on someone who's already dead. And it couldn't make him any _more dead_."

"Please, Neville," Ginny sobbed, pulling him tight against her. "Please wake up. I'll do anything."

"Even anal?" Harry asked.

"Look, he's quite clearly dead," Malfoy said. "Even offering sexual favours isn't going to bring him back."

"Hermione would. Sure, if the Grim Reaper was feeling randy she'd give him one, if it meant bringing Neville back..."

###

"Wait, where are you going?"

THAT IS, AS THEY SAY, MY CUE. HAVE A NICE LIFE.


	16. ND: Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling**

The epic Neville Trilogy continues

_**NEVILLE DEXTEROUS**_

_chapter nine_

_taylor swift is not amused_

Neville couldn't remember the exact details of his birth, but he wondered if his young, underdeveloped brain could have processed how sweet taking that first breath was.

The second breath was not so sweet, as Ron had decided to give the CPR another go because Ginny was "inexperienced and obviously had no idea what she was doing."

Neville had not been conscious for her effort, but he couldn't imagine that it could possibly have been worse than him gagging on Ron's tongue.

"Oh joy, he's alive," Malfoy muttered sarcastically.

Ginny, showing strength none of them knew she had, grabbed Ron and hauled him off of Neville. Neville barely had time to recover before she had him on his back. Her kissing technique was perhaps not as aggressive as Ron.

Neville tried to get her off, but had a surprisingly strong grip. He tried to signal to Ron and Harry to help, but they seemed more amused than anything else.

Eventually it was Hermione who saved him. He was not pleased about this.

"Oh, Neville my darling," she said, having just rugby tackled Ginny. "I came as soon as I'd heard. Are you okay? Of course you're not. You're all wet. Here, I'll take off my robes and you can wear them. They're sort of dry."

"NO!" Ginny shrieked, shoving Hermione. "If Neville gets to wear anybody's clothes they'll be mine." The two girls began pulling their robes off, before trying to hand them to Neville.

There was a long silence as the four boys admired the view. Ginny tended to wear her school uniform underneath her robes, but Hermione apparently had not had time to change, and was instead clad only in a very small piece of material that presumably she slept in.

"Sweet Merlin, Hermione!" Ginny gasped. "That dress makes your boobs look fantastic." There was a moment while the men processed what Ginny had said.

"Ginny!" Ron exclaimed.

"What? I'm not a lesbian or anything, but just look at those girls. They're fantastic."

Unbelievably, Hermione actually flushed.

"Right, why don't you two keep your robes on," Neville said. "I'll borrow something from one of the fifty other Gryffindors you brought down with you."

Hermione had apparently kicked up quite a fuss when she'd found out Neville had nearly drowned. Most of the Gryffindor house had turned out, and by now a fair few of the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had got the message as well.

"Oh no," Malfoy said. "Now they'll think I was helping you or something. My reputation will be ruined."

"Look everyone!" one of the particularly bright Hufflepuffs shouted. "Draco Malfoy's helping them! That means he must be on our side now!"

"Draco, oh how wonderful," Hermione gasped, rushing over to help him. Even the fact that she hadn't put her robes back on yet could not make Malfoy feel any better.

"Very commendable, Mr Malfoy." _Oh, blast, it's Dumbledore._ "You will, naturally, want to transfer to the Gryffindor House to cement your new-found allegiances."

"Oh hell no."

"Splendid," Dumbledore replied. "And now, Harry and Neville, I believe I shall need to speak with you both in my office. You may have a few minutes to speak to your respective love interests. This may take a while."

Harry apparently did not know who his love interest was supposed to be, because he turned to Ron and asked what the final score in the Cannons' match had been. Not that he cared, but he would feel awkward if he didn't talk to someone. Hermione was distracted by Malfoy, so Neville now had no protection from Ginny.

"I love you," she said, looking expectantly at him.

"Ginny, maybe we should talk over there," Neville said. "You know, where half the school can't hear us."

Neville's strategy of walking slightly out of earshot of most of the school was foiled when they worked out that they could hear everything better if they took a few steps to the right. One First Year in the middle was a bit slow on the uptake and was trampled to death.

"I love you," Ginny said again, the same expression never leaving her face.

"Look, Ginny, here's the thing," Neville began. "Right, the thing is... the thing..." He took a deep breath. Giving her a chance to speak was not a good idea.

"I love you."

"Ginny! Ginny. Ginny. Ginny."

"Oh, he's not handling this well, is he?" McGonagall said in a carrying whisper.

"Miss Weasley appears to be employing a rather good strategy," Flitwick confirmed.

"At this rate he'll have to ask her to marry him or he'll just look like a dick for dragging it out this long," Snape added.

"Ginny, you're a really great girl," Neville said, finding the words at last. "But, listen, the thing is I'm too young to go around saying stuff like that. I mean, I like you and all -."

"But you don't love me?" Ginny asked, her face falling. "B-b-but that day in the Great Hall... you looked at me and I-I-I could see how much you l-l-loved me!" Neville blinked.

"Ginny, that was just lust," Neville replied. "I'm a hormonal, sex-deprived teenage boy. I look at most girls that way sooner or later. In fact, I've been known to look at furniture like that."

The crowd ten feet to the left started whispering frantically, and Neville just knew that tomorrow morning there would be a story going around about how he'd dumped Ginny Weasley to date a coffee table instead.

"I really like you, but I just can't give you what you want," Neville concluded. "I hope we can still be friends." Ginny started to cry.

"Tell me why?" Ginny asked.

"Look, Ginny..."

"It's a love story, baby, just say yes!"

"What?"

"You're the reason for the teardrops on my guitar!"

"You don't have a guitar."

"Baby can't you see?" Ginny shrieked. "YOU BELONG WITH ME!" Neville grabbed her shoulders and shook them slightly.

"Ginny, you're not making any sense," he hissed.

"Well, you've broken my heart," Ginny sobbed. "I've fallen for this twice. First Harry strung me along, now you've done it too. Well, I'm not going to let any man play me for a fool again. I'm a lesbian now!"

"Ginny, you're not a lesbian."

"SHUT UP YOU DIRTY, SMELLY BOY!" She pulled back and slapped him. Many of the crowd cheered and clapped. She stormed up towards the castle as someone shouted, "You go girlfriend!" Neville stood there clutching his cheek.

Ron was the one who eventually offered to console him. He clapped him on the back a couple of times.

"Women are all mental, mate," he said diplomatically.

###

Neville didn't have much time to dwell on this though, because he and Harry were soon swept up and taken to Dumbledore's office. The old man offered them two seats. Neville wondered about how there always seemed to be just enough seats in the office. Perhaps Dumbledore had a cupboard somewhere where he kept all the armchairs he conjured but didn't need anymore.

"Harry," Dumbledore said at last. He looked across and appeared to notice Neville for the first time, because he jumped slightly in his seat. "Ron."

"Neville, sir," he said. "Ron's the redhead."

"Oh, then who was Head Boy?"

"Percy."

"Wasn't he one of the twins?"

"No. They were Fred and George."

"And then the parents were...?"

"Molly and Arthur. Look, sir, we're not here to discuss the Weasley family tree!"

"Oh, well, you were the one that brought it up," Dumbledore said. "Seems to me like you're very interested in the Weasleys. Particularly the youngest daughter. Am I right, Harry?"

Dumbledore and Harry high-fived, and, if the loud crack was anything to go by, the force was probably enough to break Dumbledore's old and feeble wrist. He said nothing though.

"Neville, let me give you a bit of advice," Dumbledore said. "You have to go for it while you still have your youth. I waited until I felt the time was right, but now I'm far too old to satisfy him sexually."

"_Him_, sir?" Harry asked. Dumbledore waved his broken hand, which flopped from side to side.

"My boyfriend," Dumbledore said. "German lad. Blonde hair, blue eyes and a stallion in bed. Anyway, take this advice from an old man."

Neville thought it best to just humour him in the hope that he might eventually get to the point. He just looked expectantly at Neville for a while.

It had been a whole five minutes since Dumbledore had said something. Even for him, that was an unusually long time to form words.

Neville lowered his head into his hands. The old man had gone and snuffed it.

"What's wrong?" Harry asked.

"The barmy old coot is dead," Neville groaned.

"Oh."

There was a long silence.

"I call dibs on his office. I've always wanted my own office."

Neville swore. The situation seemed to call for it, after all.

_The Neville Trilogy will be concluded in_

NEVILLE FALSUS


	17. NF: Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

_A/N: If I'm perfectly honest this is probably one of my favourite chapters, but then the first chapters of Numquam and Dexterous are probably close behind that. Guess I always get off to a better start than finish, hopefully you'll enjoy this one as much as I liked playing around with it._

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter one_

_where babies come from_

It was a nippy late February night and the Golden Trio was curled up on the sofa all adding the finishing touches to their respective essays. This meant, of course, that Harry and Ron had written their names at the top of the page and Hermione had done the rest. It was a Potions essay, and Snape never noticed these things anyway. He tended to just give Hermione an Outstanding and give Ron and Harry Poors. Then, about six months later, he would publish Hermione's essay in a Potions Journal under his own name.

Harry was enjoying several dirty magazines. Ron had tried reading them once, but didn't see the point of them, so he'd just gotten back to scratching himself and passing wind, two of his very favourite pastimes. Indeed, chess was probably the only thing he loved more.

Hermione took a pause from her essay to stare into space with a deep and meaningful look on her beautiful face.

"I think I'm very glad that McGonagall was made Headmistress instead of Snape," she said. "Her sharp policy changes have been very beneficial for the school. Why, just last week I saw a Slytherin holding a door open for an old lady."

"Yeah, but that was just so that she'd step straight into the bear trap he'd hidden halfway up the corridor," Harry pointed out.

"Yes, but all the same, I think the school is a better place for it." There was silence for a moment again.

"McGonagall's quite handy with a wand as well," Harry said at last. "She was pretty something when we had to defend the castle from that army of orcs."

"We never would have managed to beat them off if it hadn't been for those Time-Travelling Samurai Warriors dropping in to use the loo," Ron said. "That was a fortunate coincidence."

"Between that and the Christmas exams, I'm surprised Professor Flitwick had the time to launch his Master Plan for World Domination," Hermione said.

Ron nodded. "Thank goodness Neville managed to find the Sword of Balthazar in the Cave of Mortis Doominus; otherwise we'd never have managed to stop him and Zombie Hitler."

"I just wish we'd been able to get to them before they destroyed Wales," Hermione sighed mournfully. The trio took a moment to remember all the poor sheep that lost their lives that day. Harry had a bit of a sleazy looking grin on his face, but Hermione chose to ignore it.

"What do you guys think of the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher this week then?" Hermione asked. "That essay he gave us was a bit of a joke, right?"

Tired of lawsuits from grieving families, the Board of Governors had decided to appoint a Guest Defence Against he Dark Arts teacher every week, on the basis that it would probably not be long enough for them to get themselves killed (this had not been true for Professor Rowan, but that had been the week of the orc invasion, so the board felt it was hardly fair to dismiss the system just on that basis). This had led to several memorable professors, including Fred Weasley, who had turned up for a second week claiming, "I'm not Fred, I'm George." He had arrived for a third week with, "I'm the real George, last week it was just Fred pretending to be me!" The fourth time he had shown up with, "That Fred, he's always pulling pranks like this. I'm the real George." The fifth time had just been an optimistic, "Don't suppose you're that gullible then?"

This week their teacher had been Professor Wed Freasley, who looked a lot like Fred Weasley but with a giant, fake moustache.

Still, for whatever reason, Ron was getting his best ever grades in Defence Against the Dark Arts. Hermione was very proud of him. It had only been a few weeks since the three American Exchange Students he had been seeing behind each other's backs had mysteriously died of sexual exhaustion, and he was handling it a lot better now than he had at first. He was lucky to have such wonderful friends as Harry and her.

"Want to play chess?" Ron asked Harry suddenly. Harry took a moment to weigh up his options. On the one hand he had never even come close to beating Ron at chess (even the game where Ron had graciously allowed Harry to field eight queens instead of pawns), but on the other hand his arrogance (or, as he referred to it, "his acknowledgement of his own brilliance") would never allow him to admit that he could never beat Ron.

Harry eventually agreed. It took longer to find all the chess pieces than it did for Ron to stuff him.

###

Neville had problems of his own. Sure, he'd saved the world at least four times in as many months, but he couldn't deal with his former best friend turned stalker. She managed to corner him in the Great Hall to try whatever ridiculous idea she'd come up with this week to convince him to date her.

He braced himself for the worst.

"Neville, I'm pregnant," Ginny told him. "And you're the father."

"Now, Ginny, the problem with that is that we'd have to have sex for you to get pregnant," Neville told her with a sigh.

"No, no, no!" Ginny shook her head. "Wizards and witches don't have to have sex to get pregnant. It's _magic_!"

"I'm fairly sure I'd know if that was true," Neville said. Sure, his grandmother had never answered his questions about where babies came from, but he had always had a vague idea. Then, over the summer, Sirius had taken it upon himself to give Neville the talk about sex; the one where the adult tries to mortify you by destroying everything wonderful you'd ever thought about the opposite sex and made it sound so disgusting that you'd never want to have sex again.

"This is almost as bad as when you tried to slip that potion into my pumpkin juice," Neville said. "Remember? Ron eventually mounted the pig roast."

"It was supposed to make you admit your hidden feelings," Ginny said meekly. "It was for Valentine's Day. I thought it would be romantic."

"Yeah, well, there was nothing romantic about Ron doing that on the dinner table. Oh no, don't cry _again._"

For some reason, Ginny always insisted on crying that little bit louder when he asked her not to. This attracted the attention of Neville's second major problem; one Severus Snape.

"How can you abandon me and our child?" Ginny wailed.

"What's this, Longbottom?" Snape asked. "Abandoning your responsibilities as a father? That'll be fifty points from Gryffindor."

"But sir, she's not really pregnant," Neville pleaded. "She's just trying to trick me into going out with her!"

"Accusing another student of slander is a very serious matter. Another ten points from Gryffindor are in order, I think."

Neville sighed. "I just can't win, can I?"

"Five points from Gryffindor for that defeatist attitude, Longbottom."

Neville decided that the only way to get Snape and Ginny off of his back would be to find a girlfriend of his own. Unfortunately, the rumour that Neville was looking for a girlfriend and was fairly desperate spread around the school fairly quickly, and Neville soon found himself being serenaded at dinnertime in front of the whole school by Ginny.

Of course, after Ginny had left the Great Hall in the middle of dinner in floods of tears, none of the other girls in the school seemed to want anything to do with him. This was most annoying. Even Lavender Brown, who up until the start of the year had practically thrown herself at him on a daily basis, was not interested.

_Desperate times call for desperate measures_, Neville thought as he approached Luna Lovegood.

Later on he had wondered if he could have phrased his proposal any better

"Hey, Luna, you don't have any friends. How about we go on a date?" Neville asked.

Luna puffed out her cheeks in anger. "_Excuse me_," she snapped. "Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there!"

"Oh, sorry," Neville said. "Look, I'm fairly desperate here. How about it?"

"It's awfully rude to talk over other people," Luna replied. She turned to what looked a lot like thin air and asked, "I'm sorry Colonel, what were you saying?"

She refused to let him leave until "the Colonel" had had his full say.

Neville briefly considered asking Hannah Abbot, but quickly decided that he wasn't quite _that_ desperate.


	18. NF: Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter two_

_what women want_

Malfoy was not enjoying life as a Gryffindor. He could not imagine how anyone could possibly stand this. People insisted on helping him with his essays whether he wanted it or not, and suddenly his grades were better than ever. Beautiful Gryffindor and Ravenclaw girls were suddenly throwing themselves at him. It was like living in hell.

Also, Professor Snape was mean to him, and had reduced him to tears during a Potions lesson. Sure, all the other teachers gave him House Points for being able to sit the right way in a chair when he was a Gryffindor, but what was the point if your favourite Professor now regarded you like something unpleasant he'd stepped in?

Malfoy only had one option. He would seek help from the most powerful wizard in the world.

The Death Eaters were reluctant to let him into the Dark Lord's secret base. The Dark Lord's servants weren't exactly known for their intelligence, and didn't seem to recognise Malfoy at all. When he whacked them over the head sharply with a walking stick, they vaguely seemed to recall someone similar looking who used to whack them over the head with such objects, and so they let him in.

Then he had the small matter of convincing the most powerful dark wizard who had ever lived that he needed a schoolboy with no real skills or influence in his army.

"Draco Malfoy," the Dark Lord said from his Throne of Skulls. The Dark Lord had apparently decided when designing his secret base that he didn't care if his Throne Room was not particularly welcoming. So, naturally he had decided that the room ought to be only dimly lit by a few candles and he needed a throne comprised entirely of human skulls. It didn't look particularly comfortable, but Malfoy guessed that he must have at least got the Death Eaters to file down a bit flat enough for him to plant his evil arse on without anything sticking into him.

"What brings you to my fortress?" he asked. Malfoy looked around. He could make out a lot of men in hoods, but with such dim lighting he probably wouldn't have recognised them even if they weren't wearing masks.

"I am here to pledge my allegiance to the cause," Malfoy replied, dropping down onto one knee.

"Interesting," the Dark Lord said. He placed a hand to his chin as if thinking about it. Malfoy did not find it particularly interesting. Surely everyone in the world had no doubt whatsoever that Lucius Malfoy would raise his son with this one moment in mind. "And what can a useless Gryffindor offer the Dark Lord?"

"I offer information," Malfoy said. "The fools trust me with their most intimate secrets. I can be your spy." Voldemort seemed amused.

"Well, what secrets might these be?" he asked. Malfoy thought for a moment.

A long, horrifying moment in which he remembered that the Gryffindors were all incompetents who never talked about anything that actually mattered.

"Well, Parvati Patil has been fooling around with Cho Chang behind Seamus Finnigan's back," Malfoy said. The Dark Lord did not react at all. Malfoy struggled to think of anything else. Anything.

"You do realise how dangerous it will be if you become my spy?" Voldemort asked, thankfully breaking the silence. "Even if you continue to bring me such... juicy... information as this, I will not be... nice to you. Only one Gryffindor has ever joined my army before, and I make sure to torture him at least three times a day. I even broke him out of Azkaban so I'd have something to play with." He gestured to Wormtail, who was cowering at the foot of the Throne of Skulls. He winced.

"My Lord, do you ever think that maybe you need to work on your motivational techniques?" Malfoy asked. "I don't mean to criticise your management style, but you don't exactly encourage your employees to do well, given that either way they'll be horribly tortured." The Dark Lord just stared at him.

"Run along, Mr Malfoy," he said. "Do not return without _real_ information for me otherwise I will subject you to punishments too gruesome to waste on Wormtail."

Wormtail gave Malfoy an encouraging thumbs up before he left.

###

Neville soon decided that his wooing technique required some work. So he turned to the library, which had a surprising number of self-help books about teenage romance (all of which seemed to have been checked out by Ginny at some point, including those with titles such as _Wooing Witches for Dummies_).

It would have been very embarrassing to be seen reading such books though, so when reading them he hid them within a copy of _Hogwarts, A History_. This had the advantage of making him look smart in front of the sexy, sexy Ravenclaw girls.

He was reading through _Getting Into Your Witch's Knickers_ at the moment. Some of the advice seemed so obvious really, but he'd never thought about it.

_Girls like to be complimented. They often don't care how rubbish the compliment is, or how shallow you seem. Just be sure not to overload the girl with compliments, otherwise she begins to think you're some sort of weirdo._

He was sitting in the library when he turned to Lavender Brown.

"Lavender, your hair looks very nice today," he said. Lavender giggled.

"Thank you, Neville," she said, before turning back to her work. Neville felt a bit annoyed. Was all he was going to get a meaningless thank you? She could have at least returned the favour.

"And your eyes are pretty."

"Um, thanks again."

"Your outfit makes you look lovely."

"Neville, what are you doing?

"Your breasts are epic."

Lavender stood up. "I think I'll go and sit with some of the fourth years, actually," she said. Neville thumped his head against the desk. How could someone so beautiful be so useless with girls?

_Ask them how they're feeling. Girls love it when guys listen to them prattle on about every inconsequential detail of their meaningless lives. Make sure to listen to everything they say._

Neville unfortunately tried this on Hermione, who proceeded to talk about every aspect of her life, including the strain of being in love with Harry, who was being a complete prat and refusing to acknowledge that he still loved her. Neville did not particularly enjoy Hermione talking about Harry for an hour straight, and it felt like she never even needed to pause for breath. In the end he zoned out and just decided to stare down her top. Yes, he knew they were probably fake, but although that took away some of the appeal they were still breasts.

Which brought into play another part of the book.

_Don't stare at her breasts. For some reason, women tend not to appreciate this as much as you'd think_.

Drat.

_Girls sometimes go for bad boys, especially if they delude themselves into thinking that they can change them._

Professor McGonagall decided it would be fairly easy to change Neville's new bad boy image when he started smoking in the Entrance Hall. She would take one hundred points from Gryffindor.

_Buy her gifts. Girls like expensive things. Bonus points if they are shiny and can be worn or if they smell nice._

Neville presented Luna with a beautiful bouquet of roses. She promptly ripped the roses from his grasp and began screaming.

"Quick, these flowers are infested with Flesh-Eating Gorbles!" she shrieked. "We have to destroy them at once!" He proceeded to set the flowers on fire, paying no mind to how many galleons they had cost Neville. Some girls were more trouble than they were worth, it seemed.

_Be romantic and spontaneous. Surprise her with a romantic, candlelit dinner._

He was not sure why exactly he had thought that Pansy Parkinson would be wooed by a candlelit dinner on top of the Astronomy Tower. The candles blew over and set her robes on fire, which was probably the high point of the evening.

"I'm fed up with men," Pansy told him. "After Malfoy turned out to be a Muggle-lover, I think I'll just give up on them. I'm off to see if Cho Chang and Parvati Patil have room for one more."

The image that statement implanted in his brain kept Neville warm that night. Despite being a Slytherin, Pansy was incredibly hot. He imagined that Malfoy was fairly upset at the whole incident that resulted in him becoming a Gryffindor against his will.

Neville couldn't help but be depressed. It wasn't about getting Ginny off of his back anymore. It was embarrassing how bad he seemed to be at charming girls.

He was just thumping his table against the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall when Ron sat down beside him.

"Women, eh Ron?" Neville asked. Ron chuckled.

"Yeah," he said. He was silent for a moment. "Actually, no, what about them?"

"They're confusing, mysterious things," Neville said. "The girls I actually try to get to like me, like Loony Lovegood, all want nothing to do with me, but the girl I've repeatedly rejected is still stalking me."

"Hi Ginny," Ron said, waving at his sister. He seemed totally unconcerned when she didn't return the wave. "What can I say? Women are all mental mate. But I still miss my girlfriends."

"I was very sorry to hear what happened to Esmeralda, Lady Tropicana and Avril," Neville said, patting Ron on the knee. "But I'm sure that's how they would have wanted to go."

"Maybe we're just doomed to never find love." Ron looked thoughtful, or at least what passed for thoughtful with Ron. "How about, if neither of us are married by the time we're forty, we could get together?"

Neville did not even pretend to consider it. He told Ron exactly where to stick that idea.


	19. NF: Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter three_

_not a matter of life and death, but more important_

It was that time of year again. The last Quidditch game of the season was fast approaching. As had been the Hogwarts tradition since it had first began, this would be between Ravenclaw and Gryffindor. As usual, any team could still win the cup depending on the outcome, except for Hufflepuff who had only scored one goal in the entire season, and that had been an accident when Ron had taken a Bludger to face and Gryffindor had played for four hours without a Keeper before one of the Hufflepuffs got the Quaffle in when he horribly lost control of his broom and flew straight through the hoop and into the crowd, where three Hufflepuff's lost their life, including the poor Hufflepuff Chaser. Rumour had it that the Hufflepuff's had built a statue in his honour in their Common Room, but disaster had struck when no one could remember the poor bugger's name.

As Neville was Quidditch Captain, everyone was looking to him to win the match by the required nine hundred points to claim the cup. It seemed like every year the margin they had to beat in the last match just kept going up. He felt a little sorry for the unlucky soul who would have to succeed him. Then he remembered to feel a little sorry for himself, as nine hundred points seemed very unlikely given his team's current form.

Not that his team was awful, but they lacked coordination and focus. Oliver Wood had been a terrible Captain who seemed to have convinced Harry that the sun shone out of the hairy crack in his backside (not that Harry didn't believe that anyway, but Wood certainly hadn't done Neville any favours). As such, he refused to join in any team strategy meetings or help with practicing any plays, because his job was to float about above the field of play pretending to be looking for the Snitch whilst actually checking out the girls in the stands. Neville had his suspicions that Harry was just resentful that McGonagall had picked Neville over Harry for Quidditch Captain, and was deliberately trying to sabotage him. Of course, he caught the Snitch on both occasions so far, so one could hardly say he wasn't doing his job.

Neville had employed Malfoy as a reserve Seeker to try and convince Harry that there was competition for his place and maybe motivate him a bit. It hadn't worked. Rather than train, Malfoy wrote everything they did down in a notebook. When questioned about this he had merely leapt into the air and shouted, "How dare you accuse me of being a spy, you Mudblood loving fool!"

Ron had been another potential Quidditch Captain, but he did not seem at all put out at not being chosen. In fact, he had become Neville's dedicated assistant. He had filled several books with strategies he'd been working on since early childhood, and had proudly presented them to Neville. Whereas Ron had a brilliant tactical mind, his spelling was appalling and he had a tendency to lose interest. Several of his best strategies stopped somewhere in the middle for him to write a poem about a bird he saw or to show rather crude drawings of people doing unwholesome things to each other.

Then there were the cheerleaders. Before his untimely demise, Dumbledore had decided that each House Team ought to have its own cheerleaders for morale. The Slytherin cheerleaders did not do much to raise morale. Although they included Millicent Bulstrode's legs and the smoking hot Pansy Parkinson, they unfortunately also included Millicent Bulstrode's face and Gregory Goyle, who did not have a figure designed for a green cheerleader outfit. Gryffindor's head cheerleader was the ever-enthusiastic Ginny Weasley. Most of her chants seemed to feature several references to Neville's bum. It was not easy to play Quidditch when you were worried the cheerleaders were trying to catch a peak up your robes.

All in all, Neville was not exactly optimistic about the match. Perhaps that was why he took it so well when they lost.

Ron broke down and cried, and pledged to throw himself into the lake at the next conceivable opportunity.

"I don't understand," Harry said. "We won. I caught the Snitch."

"Yes, you caught the Snitch," Neville said. "But they still had three hundred more points than us. That means we're third."

There are no prizes for guessing which team finished last.

"Yes, _but I caught the Snitch_," Harry seethed. "No one cares what you lot did. The important thing is that I was awesome. Now come on, we're going to have a big party to celebrate."

No one felt much like celebrating, despite Harry running around the Common Room and insist people sing.

_Harry Potter is so awesome,_

_Harry Potter is so cool._

_Oh, we all wish we could be Harry Potter,_

_Then we'd be awesome too._

"I wrote it myself," Harry told a third year girl who actually looked impressed by the whole thing. Neville rolled his eyes.

"As if he needs encouragement," he muttered.

"Don't worry, Neville, I still think you were the best Captain Gryffindor's ever had," Ginny tried to tell him. She had not yet removed her cheerleader costume; although Neville had a feeling she had removed her knickers. She was crossing and uncrossing her legs a lot more than usual, and Neville was determined not to look.

He was a man, however, and knew that he resolve could not hold out forever. He decided to head to bed before he accidentally gave Ginny a bit of false hope. He had to hand it to her; she was persistent. Well, more obsessive than persistent really, but there was something to be said for a girl who stuck to her guns.

###

Ginny was not feeling particularly good about herself though. After Neville left her alone in the Common Room, she decided to wander over to pay a visit to the only other person in the room sitting alone as well.

"Go away," Malfoy said as she sat down.

"Draco, you like me, right?" Ginny asked. Malfoy looked at her and seemed to consider it for a while.

"No."

"Oh, come on, Draco. When I came down the stairs in September you couldn't keep your eyes off of me."

"I'd just spent a whole summer being snuggled by your brother. Anything was an improvement over that," Malfoy replied. He turned back to start writing in the little notebook he seemed to always be carrying around. Ginny sat for a while.

"Yes?" he demanded, clearly wondering why she was still here.

"What attracts you in a girl?" Ginny asked.

"A girl who knows when to leave me alone," he snapped. Ginny seemed totally unperturbed. Malfoy was clearly not pleased about this.

"Okay, fine." He slammed his book down. "I like Purebloods who are loyal to their family, blonde, smoking hot. It helps if they're about as intelligent as a bowl of jelly as well."

"Then why are you always looking at Hermione?" Ginny asked. Malfoy scowled, and took a moment to answer.

"She may be my polar opposite and oppose everything I stand for, but she has fantastically epic breasts." Ginny sniffed at this.

"So Neville doesn't like me because I don't have big breasts?" she sobbed. Malfoy looked extremely annoyed by this.

"Don't cry," he said, placing what he hoped was a reassuring hand on her knee. He looked completely out of his depth. "Listen, not all guys are completely shallow bastards. I haven't meet any that aren't, but that doesn't mean there can't be one or two of them out there. Besides, Granger's breasts are clearly fake anyway. Just you wait until she gets older and those two puppies start to sag on her. She'll look ghastly."

"What do you mean 'fake'?" Ginny asked. Her tears suddenly seemed to dry up. Malfoy looked a bit surprised.

"Well, she's obviously used a Breast-Enlargement Potion. It's not the most difficult thing in the world to make..." Ginny suddenly grabbed him.

"There's a Breast-Enlargement Potion? GIVE IT TO ME!" She frantically shook Malfoy.

"I don't have any!" he squealed.

"THEN MAKE SOME!" Ginny replied, slapping him across the face. "Or I'll rip your balls off and use them to stuff my bra. At least then they'll look bigger than what I've got now."


	20. NF: Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter four_

_it happened one night_

Sirius and Remus had been drinking heavily. This, in itself, is not a particularly unusual activity for two unemployed thirty-something men to get up to on a Wednesday night. Nor was it particularly unusual for them to sneak into Hogwarts in this inebriated state. They did it quite often to do unpleasant things to Snape while he slept. The greasy git hadn't changed the password to his own rooms in ten years.

Tonight, however, they decided to pay a visit to the Gryffindor Tower. Right now they were drinking beers at the end of the bed of Sirius's godson.

"This is quite depressing," Remus said.

"What? Surely you don't think we're too old for stuff like this?" Sirius asked. Remus shook his head.

"No, it's just that two drunk men managed to get here," Remus said. Sirius looked confused, so Remus decided to explain. "Lord Voldemort, the most powerful Dark Wizard who has ever lived, wants to kill this boy. If two drunk men can get past the castle's defences and stand in the lad's room drinking beers for ten minutes without anyone noticing, what hope has he got if Lord Voldemort finally gets off of his pale, skinny arse and tries this?" Sirius took a moment to consider this.

"Do you want to do something to his face?" Sirius asked. Remus sighed and shook his head.

"What words did you have in mind?"

Sirius grabbed his quill, and proceeded to write dirty words all over his godson's face.

"Very clever," Remus said once Sirius had finished. "I particularly like the comments about his Potions Professor. That won't lose him a million points or anything."

"Don't get snippy with me, Moony," Sirius replied, swaying slightly on the spot. "It was your idea to come up here rather than go visit Snape."

"Well, we don't check in on the kid enough," Remus pointed out. "To see how he's getting on. He's the one that has to kill Voldemort, after all."

"Why's that?" Sirius asked.

"Well, he's the Chosen One, isn't he?"

"Really? Was there some sort of prophecy or something?"

"Nope."

"Did Dumbledore tell you, then?"

"Nope."

"Well, what in Merlin's name makes you think he's the Chosen One then?"

"Werewolf intuition."

"Werewolf intuition?"

"Yes, exactly.

There was a long pause, before Sirius took another drink.

"Moony, I know that's bullshit. Now, come on and help me stick Weasley's hand in warm water."

"Do you think he has any idea?" Remus asked once they were done.

"Nope. He's still sound asleep," Sirius replied with a giggle.

"Not Weasley! Harry. Do you think he has any idea how to beat Voldemort?"

Sirius took a long moment to think.

"If he's the Chosen One then we're all boned, aren't we Moony?"

###

"My Lord! My Lord!" Wormtail shouted, running forward waving a bit of parchment in his hands. "An owl from the Malfoy boy!"

"_Crucio_!" the Dark Lord hissed, not even looking up. He grabbed the note from Wormtail's hands as he rolled around in agony. The Dark Lord found he enjoyed reading more when he had a bit of background noise.

As he read a demonic grin spread across his face.

"Good news, my servants," he announced, rising from his chair. "Apparently, young Master Malfoy was lying awake in his dorm when a drunken Sirius Black and Remus Lupin arrived, and described in elaborate detail how they had infiltrated the castle. Apparently, if we hurry, we'll get to see the amusing things they've written on Potter's face. Come now my servants." He booted the still shrieking Wormtail while he said this. "Tonight we march on Hogwarts!"

###

While he was up, Malfoy figured he ought to tell Ginny that her potion was done. She was appallingly pleased to see him.

They had to go down to the Potions lab to add the finishing touches to it. Ginny promptly drunk the whole potion and totally ignored every single warning Malfoy tried to give her. Thankfully, her hair did not catch fire and she did not suddenly start spewing purple vomit, as had happened with several of the previous less-successful batches.

Instead she quickly developed a pair of perfectly formed breasts.

"Oh Merlin," Ginny muttered in awe. She began to cup and play with them, finding them just a bit too big to wrap her small hands around. "Oh, they're perfect. Thank you so much, Draco!"

"Eh?" Malfoy asked. Needless to say, he was not paying much attention to whatever Ginny was saying.

"I can wear a bra now," Ginny said, apparently still talking. "They feel so _real_ too." She gave them a squeeze for good measure. "Here, have a feel, Draco."

"What? Wait, what are you doing you filthy blood trait-."

He was suddenly silenced as Ginny grabbed his hands and forced him to grope her new breasts against his will.

Malfoy had never heard of Murphy's Law. It was a Muggle thing. But he had often felt it in action. He knew from experience that when you have your hands on a girl's chest is the exact moment that the most powerful dark wizard who has ever lived chooses to enter. Pansy Parkinson had been quite upset when it had happened at the Manor a few summers ago, and now Ginny Weasley looked like a deer caught in headlights.

Of course, being a wizard, Malfoy had no idea what headlights were.

"Ah, excellent," the Dark Lord said. "Young Master Malfoy has already claimed his own spoils of war!" He clapped his hands together. "Personally, if _I _had first dibs I might choose someone not quite so... plain... but I always enjoy watching my Death Eaters enslave a girl against her will, even if she does look a bit... a bit... Well, you know."

Ginny, meanwhile, had removed Malfoy's hands and was now squaring up to the Dark Lord.

"Can I help you, young wench?" he asked.

"Do you remember me?" Ginny asked. The Dark Lord looked a little stumped.

"Should I?"

"In my first year, you tried to kill me," Ginny hissed.

"Yes, well, I try to kill a lot of people, so don't take it personally."

"You possessed me. Hell, you practically mind raped me." The Dark Lord looked a bit taken aback.

"You'd think I'd remember something like that," he said. He turned to the Death Eaters standing behind him as if hoping one of them might explain it to him.

"You left me a diary," Ginny said. "You made me trust you."

"Ah, the diary!" he exclaimed. "I thought I'd lost it."

"Well, _Harry_ destroyed it. And he killed your basilisk."

"Oh, no, not Fluffy," the Dark Lord moaned. "I got the name from Hagrid," he explained to the perplexed looking Death Eaters (it is a very intriguing skill to be able to look perplexed whilst wearing a mask that conceals your entire face, but the Death Eaters were masters of their art).

"So, will you be joining our assault against the unsuspecting students of Hogwarts?" the Dark Lord asked.

"Absolutely not!" Ginny snapped. "In fact, I'm off to warn Neville that you're coming." She made to storm out, but was blocked by the entrance of Professor Severus Snape.

"What is going on here?" he demanded. "Students out of bed? That'll be twenty points each from Gryffindor. And someone has destroyed by door! Nott, I'll be taking five points from Slytherin for this!"

"Oh, that's not fair," one of the Death Eaters complained. "It wasn't me, it was the Dark Lord!"

"Well, I'm hardly going to try and take House Points off of a man who could kill me with a flick of his wrist. Now get to bed or it'll be twenty!"


	21. NF: Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter five_

_hufflepuff is just fancy talk for cannon fodder_

The Hufflepuff table was fairly empty the next morning.

"What do you think happened to them all?" Ron asked.

"Well, if I had to guess, I'd say that the Dark Lord attacked Hogwarts and got lost looking for the Gryffindor Tower, so just destroyed the nearest House he could find," Malfoy said.

"Oh," Ron said, taking a sip of Pumpkin Juice. "Cool."

"Wait a second," Hermione said, showing the sort of quick-thinking that had not been evident since the rapid increase in her bust size. "How do _you _know about all of this?" Malfoy visibly started to sweat.

"Er, um... Mandy Brocklehurst told me," he replied.

"Really? Mandy said that?" Hermione asked, sounding impressed.

"What do you think of all this, Harry?" Ron asked. Harry looked up from where he was trying to make his breakfast look like his own face, with a tomato carved up with a knife for the scar.

"Why, what happened?" he asked.

"We've been talking about it for five minutes now. The entire Hufflepuff House was murdered by Lord Voldemort," Hermione said.

"Oh, him, yeah. Real shame about that," Harry said. "He killed my parents, you know?"

"Yes, you mention it at least twelve times a day," Neville said wearily. "So what are we going to do?"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

"You know. We do this every week. First you get some idea into your head about hunting down Voldemort or whatever and then you form the most half-baked plan ever, but you'll give up by lunchtime when you realise that no one gives a shit."

"Well, I think we should definitely hunt him down," Harry said, tossing his breakfast onto the floor. Ron tried to be subtle about moving towards it, though in truth he wasn't fooling anyone.

"Hey guys, how's things?"

Ginny had arrived, having conveniently forgotten to do up the top few buttons on the blouse of her school uniform which just happened to show off some newly acquired assets. Harry turned around.

"Oh, Ginny, could you be quiet for a bit?" he asked. He seemed utterly unconcerned that in his current position his face was practically embedded in Ginny's newly found cleavage.

"Well, don't you notice anything different about me?" she asked hopefully, managing to nudge a little bit further forward. Harry's response was muffled by the chest that had been pressed into his face.

"Ginny, would you go away?" Ron demanded. "Important people are talking here!"

"Oh, you are always so mean to me!" Ginny shrieked, her eyes glistening with tears. "This is exactly why I unlocked the Chamber of Secrets! Tom cared about me! He was always happy to see me!"

"He was the spirit of a sixteen year old boy trapped inside a diary with no one to talk to for fifty years," Ron pointed out. "He'd talk to anyone, no matter how dull their life was."

"I hate you!" Ginny screamed. She ran out of the Great Hall crying. Neville had spent the whole conversation with his mouth hanging open admiring the vision of loveliness that had appeared before him. How had Ginny suddenly become so hot overnight? This sort of stuff didn't normally happen (except that one time summer when Neville had become suddenly the most gorgeous thing on legs, but even that had taken longer than a night). He made to get up and go after her, but Ron chose that moment to wrap his arm around Neville's shoulder and hold him down.

"Let us attack at once!" Harry proclaimed, rising out of his chair.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Hermione asked. Harry promptly sat back down.

"Fine, let's play chess instead," Harry said. He helped himself some more toast.

"Yes, but if we don't go and defeat the Dark Lord, then you won't have an excuse not to have to take your end of year exams," Neville said. Harry's eyes widened.

"We'll find a way then. Even if it's the last thing we ever do. We won't sleep until we have a plan." He looked about for a moment. "Actually, I'm pretty tired and I think Ron may have already fallen asleep, but Hermione definitely won't rest until we have a plan."

###

Hermione actually managed to come up with a plan very quickly. The only problem was that Harry was fairly upset as to what it would entail.

"Why do I have to go ask the hook-nosed git?" he grumbled. "He actually likes Malfoy. Send him."

Malfoy voiced his desire to have nothing to do with their plan by telling Harry where he could stick his head and then expire. McGonagall took three points from Gryffindor for that, leaving Malfoy looking rather pleased.

"You're the only one who can persuade him, Harry," Hermione urged. "Yes, I could go in there and let him feel up my breasts and then tell him I'll go to the Board of Governors if he doesn't help us, but I really think that he ought to come of his own accord." Harry's face seemed to twitch.

"Can I feel up your breasts then?" Harry asked.

"No, Harry."

"Can I?" Ron asked.

"Absolutely not, Ron!" Hermione scolded.

"I don't like this plan," Ron announced, crossing his arms and huffing. "It seems to me like any decent plan would at least let _someone_ get to feel up a pair of breasts."

Harry was not happy about it and he made it very clear as Hermione led him down to Snape's office. She left him outside the door with a peck on the cheek and took Ron back upstairs with her. Harry took a deep breath before knocking.

"You may enter," sounded the silky smooth voice of Professor Snape. Apparently he was grading essays.

"Oh, it's you," he said when Harry had entered. "Well, go on. Get out or I'll start taking points from Gryffindor."

"Sir," Harry began (Hermione had stressed the importance of being polite to Snape and resisting the temptation to call him names, insult his intelligence or moon him). "I need your help. I want to know where Lord Voldemort's secret fortress is hidden." Snape put down the quill he had been writing with and looked at Harry.

"Very good, Mr Potter," Snape said. "I shall, of course, be happy to betray the Dark Lord's location to you so that you may walk straight into his open arms where he can properly choke the very last living breath out of you. I'm sure the Dark Lord won't mind at all if I betray him."

"Hey, he won't kill me," Harry replied sternly, doing his best to look menacing. "I'm Harry Potter. I can handle a few dark wizards." Snape did not look amused.

"Let me ask you, Potter, if you have given any thought to what you will do with this information, should I choose to present it to you? Will you march up to the castle and knock on the front door pretending to be Muggles delivering Chinese food?"

"Actually, that's not a bad plan," Harry agreed. Snape made a noise that Harry took to indicate disgust. "What?"

"This is the most powerful dark wizard who has ever lived. You cannot simply walk into his fortress. His gates are guarded by more than just Death Eaters."

"Like what else?" Snape sighed.

"Merlin, Potter, is there no end to your incompetence? I'm talking about vampires, werewolves, dragons, trolls, goblins, orcs, giants, zombies, knolls, cylons, hobgoblins, minotaurs, furies, hellhounds, ghouls, ghosts, poltergeists, The Riddler, gremlins, banshees, Dementors, demons and anything else your feeble mind can think of. To put it in terms you can understand, you have no chance!" He slammed his hand on the desk for good measure. "I've been training you for months now, and I honestly still wouldn't trust you know which end to hold on a sword. The Dark Lord will defeat you and kill you, if you ever make it that far! Now five points from Gryffindor for be such an incompetent, useless excuse for a Chosen One."

Snape went back to marking the essays, but Harry was not ready to give up. He strode over to the desk and slammed his hands on the table.

"Right, you need to start giving me some respect around here," Harry shouted. Snape rose to his feet and glared at him.

"Alright, Mr Potter," he said smoothly. "I know for a fact that you carry five throwing knives in that bag of yours. If you can manage to hit me with any of them from a distance of two meters then I will come with you." Snape stepped back so that his back was up against the bookshelf that housed many of his prized Potions ingredients. Harry drew out his knives.

As Snape had obviously anticipated, Harry did not hit him once. He did, however, manage to nail both of his own feet to the floor.

"Typical," Snape sneered. "Just like your father."

"Why did you hate my father so much?" Harry demanded. He was in a lot of pain right now, and he was determined to blame it on Snape rather than his own poor aim. "And I don't buy into any of this, 'we always hated each other from the start' crap that you and Sirius keep spouting."

Snape suddenly spun around to face the wall. He seemed to think for a while.

"Have you ever been in love, Mr Potter?" he asked eventually, not turning around.

"Huh? Well, I thought I was. You know; Hermione." Snape suddenly spun around.

"I was in love once, Potter. Does that surprise you?" Snape seemed to stare dreamily into space. "But our love was something else. Our love was special." A dark look suddenly swept over his face. "But my love was more interested in _your father_. So you see, your father took my love from me."

"Oh, I get it," Harry said. "You hated my dad because my mum loved him instead of you."

"Absolutely not!" Snape roared, suddenly looking disgusted. "I would never love a filthy Mudblood."

"Then... who?"

Snape gave a dreamy sigh.

"I was in love with Wormtail."

"Oh God."

"Oh, I remember those days," Snape said, paying no attention to Harry. "When he and I would lie in the moonlight making love. But he left me to follow your father about. Your father never understood him like I did. He taunted and abused poor Wormtail. He treated him like a lapdog. That was why I became a Death Eater. So that I could free my beloved from the tyrannous grasp of your father."

"And then what happened?" Harry asked, having just been sick in his school bag. He really had no desire to find out, but he figured this was the way to convince Snape to hand over the information he needed.

"Then Wormtail defected, and it all went downhill. Suddenly the Dark Lord was torturing him constantly. I had to do something. So I offered to spy for Dumbledore, so I could save him from the evil wizard."

"But Voldemort still abuses Wormtail all the time. If you help us then you'll be able to save him." Snape looked up at him. He had a desperate look in his eye that Harry found very disturbing.

"Anything to save my Wormy-Wormy-Woo," Snape said. Harry felt something rising in his stomach again, and this time vomited soundly in Snape's wastepaper basket.

"Splendid," he muttered.


	22. NF: Chapter 6

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter six_

_follow the leader_

Hogwarts seemed to have a number of rooms that one would not normally think you would need in a school. The dojo was perhaps a good example. Another fine example was the war room, which Ginny had found when she was trying to find an empty bathroom to cut herself in.

It was a curious room. It had no windows yet the candles around the walls lit it up as if it were outside in the sunlight. In the centre was a table with a map of Europe. On the map there appeared to be details of a plan for conquering Europe in what looked suspiciously like Dumbledore's handwriting.

Harry had assembled a team of his most trusted and loyal friends, which basically consisted of everyone who didn't tell him to get stuffed whenever he asked if they would come. For some reason this included Malfoy, who, despite volunteering, was doing his best to look as though he would rather be anywhere else.

Neville had also signed up for this suicide mission, so naturally Ginny had followed him. Hermione and Ron never left Harry's side. Lavender Brown had also agreed to come along. Sirius and Remus had been in the castle for reasons they did not care to elaborate on, so they were coming too. Finally there was Severus Snape, who looked utterly mortified at the poor turnout.

"Really? Is this all you could find?" he demanded. "Surely all those fools in Gryffindor are all prepared to throw themselves in front of Potter to protect him."

"You would think," Neville replied. "But, unfortunately, Harry asks them to join his army at least three times a week, and eventually disbands the army when he gets bored, which takes a lot less time than you'd think."

Snape looked as though he had a sarcastic remark ready for that statement, but decided against it when it seemed too easy.

"You should have been here that second week in December," Ron said helpfully. "We had a real good turnout then."

"That was because we told the Hufflepuffs we had food," Hermione reminded him. "With the Hufflepuffs all being slaughtered, we can't do that anymore."

"I suppose our best bet would be to sneak in anyway," Snape said, although he looked like he might prefer his chances had he a legion of goblins in finest armour behind him. "The Dark Lord's castle is in Germany, so we will take a while to get there." He marked the point on Dumbledore's map of Europe.

"Why build a castle in the middle of a German mountain range?" Harry asked. "Surely that's totally impractical. It's nowhere near the country he wants to conquer either."

"Well, the Dark Lord thought that he ought to build his evil fortress in the most evil nation on Earth," Snape explained.

"That's not fair!" Hermione said hotly. "Just because of a few bad eggs in Die Hard, everyone always assumes that the Germans are all totally evil. Well, it's utter nonsense."

"Put a sock in it, Granger," Snape snapped. "We need to start gathering supplies for the journey, since you lot can't be trusted to Apparate to the other side of this room."

"You can't Apparate inside the Hogwarts-!"

"Ten points from Gryffindor for trying to ruin my joke, Granger! I can only hope that a master plan for getting into the fortress will occur to me at some point in the journey."

"I'm the leader," Harry said smugly. "If anyone comes up with a cunning plan, it'll be me." This time it was Malfoy who had a scathing remark to make.

"Potter, you wouldn't know a cunning plan if it painted itself red and danced naked on a broomstick singing, 'cunning plans are here again'."

"That'll be fifty points from Gryffindor, Mr Malfoy," Snape growled. "For stealing someone else's joke without giving them credit for it."

###

The groups went to their various dormitories to pack the vital supplies needed for their epic quest. As Sirius and Remus did not live in the castle, they had to return to their home to tell Sirius's wife where he had been for the last two days, and to explain that they would be gone for one or two more. She was asleep for most of the explanation, but she probably got the gist of it.

Ron, Harry, Neville and Malfoy went up to their dormitory to pack up all the things they would need. Neville tried to remind Harry at least seven times that he would need more pairs of clean underwear than he was bringing, but Harry insisted that the pair he was wearing at the moment were good for a least another week.

Ron, meanwhile, appeared to have been building up a supply of Muggle weapons, and was currently trying to see how much ammunition he could fit into his rucksack.

"Ron, where did you get all those guns?" Dean asked.

"When I was dating those three American girls," Ron replied. "Apparently you can get guns really easily over there."

"It's a shame you're not coming, Dean," Neville said. "We really could use your help."

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "I mean, I'm sure you'd come in handy if we needed to pick a lock or hotwire a car or something." Dean's mood suddenly changed.

"Excuse me?" he demanded, storming over to where Harry was sitting on his bed. "Are you suggesting that I know how to hotwire a car just because I'm black?" Harry looked up at his tall figure with a perplexed look on his face.

"Don't you?" Harry asked. Dean snarled and stomped across the room.

"I don't believe this, Potter! I've lived with you for seven years and I had no idea you were such a racist. Next you'll be telling me you'll need me to supply you with Class A drugs and help you keep your ho's in check!"

"Nonsense," Harry said. "If anyone will be supplying hard drugs around here, it'll be Seamus." He gestured to where Seamus had recently shot up and was now lying on his bed staring blankly into space.

"Woah," Seamus muttered.

"Come on, Seamus, we're leaving!" Dean announced, before taking off and muttering under his breath. Seamus rolled off of his bed and landed with a thump, but made no further effort to pursue Dean.

Harry shrugged and got back to his packing. Eventually he and Ron had finished.

"Ron, there's something I want to talk to you about," Harry said. "In case we don't make it back."

"I know, Harry," Ron said, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder. "I love you too." Harry looked a bit put out for a moment.

"Actually, no, Ron, it's something else," Harry tried to explain.

"Look, if you want to impregnate my sister, that's fine." Harry seemed to consider that one for a bit.

"Actually, no, I think I'll pass," Harry said eventually. "I just wanted to tell you that you are a complete waste of space and I have no respect for you at all. The only reason I'm still friends with you is that when I discussed kicking you out of the group with Hermione, she got a bit upset."

"Really?" Ron asked. He didn't seem at all phased by Harry's statement.

"Yeah, you have no valuable skills and you're pretty thick." Harry apparently decided to go for broke. "You're a bit ugly on it as well, and your sister couldn't give it away. Your family is so poor it offends me. And the reason your family is so poor is because your mother eats all the food, because she's so fat. And the Chudley Cannons are the worst team in the world."

"I know, Harry," Ron said. He suddenly threw his arms around Harry and hugged him.

"Ron, I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying," Harry said.

"No, I do!" Ron sobbed. "We'll always be together, Harry. I promise." Harry seemed to give up and just patted Ron lightly on the shoulder.

Eventually Neville and Malfoy finished packing as well, but not before Malfoy sent off an owl to his mother. The four boys stood in the room looking at each other for a while, before deciding to go down and see if the girls were ready yet.

Ginny was waiting for them at the foot of the stairs. Apparently Hermione and Lavender had gone down to the war room already. The group made its way downstairs while Ginny prattled on about how wonderful this trip was going to be, and how she'd packed plenty of skimpy outfits to show off her new breasts.

She kept dropping her bag as well, so that she could bend down and pick it up. Neville, fed up with how hot and bothered the glimpse down her shirt at these incidents got him, offered to carry her bags for her.

He immediately realised that he perhaps should have given that one a bit more thought.

"Oh, Neville, that's so sweet of you!" Ginny squealed. "Oh, I can't wait to tell Lavender about this!" She skipped on ahead, leaving Neville carrying all the bags and having to endure the smug looks from Ron, Malfoy and Harry.

"Just shut up."

They reached the war room, where Snape was trying desperately to cut down the contents of Hermione's twelve suitcases, each of which was filled to burst with books.

"But what if I need to look up the ingredients for a Cheering Potion, or how to do First Year Transfiguration?" Hermione pleaded.

"Granger, you have probably memorised every single one of these books," Snape growled. "You may take one book with you." Hermione howled in anguish and sobbed and screamed for half an hour before Ron chose _Hogwarts, A History _for her.


	23. NF: Chapter 7

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling.**

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter seven_

_into the dark_

The journey had been long and uneventful. Harry had moaned the entire journey about how bored he was, and they'd all gotten held up for four days when Hermione wanted to go shopping in Paris before eventually getting back together with Harry after a wonderful, romantic evening in the French moonlight, though Harry hadn't scored because Ron had been there too and Hermione had at least enough decency to think that actually shagging in front of Ron might melt the poor boy's brain. They spent most of the rest of the trip camping, so we'll skip that, because no one wants to read about camping for pages on end.

Neville had been relatively quiet throughout most of the journey. For one thing he didn't want to engage Ginny any more than was necessary, and he was trying desperately to come up with some sort of plan for getting into a heavily fortified Death Eater castle.

When he actually saw the castle he knew instantly that all of those long hours spent planning had been wasted. He had not anticipated that Voldemort's castle would be quite so big.

It was a massive black tower in the mountain range, with only one path leading up to it. The doors looked two big to open with any kind of normal magic, and Death Eaters constantly patrolled the battlements. Presumably, at night, they would be aided by the rest of Voldemort's minions.

"Shit," Harry muttered.

"Oh well, looks like we can't possibly get in," Malfoy said cheerfully. "Guess we'll just have to turn around and go home then. Let's go."

Malfoy turned to walk in the opposite direction, but Snape grabbed him and pulled him back.

"It's not so bad," Snape said, though judging by the look on his face he didn't believe a word of it. "If we each take twelve Death Eaters apiece, and then whoever kills their twelve first kills another forty-two, we'll just have Voldemort and the strongest Death Eaters in the Throne Room to worry about." Snape hung his head. "I can't believe I'm actually going to die like this," he muttered.

Harry apparently chose to ignore that last part.

"Excellent," he said, clapping his hands together. "Shall we go on three then? Or does anyone have to go to the bathroom first?"

"I have to go!" Ron exclaimed, waving his hand in the air.

"Right, you go to the toilet and we'll get ready for the assault," Harry said. Ron happily skipped out of their hiding place and into plain sight of the castle, but no one took any notice of him.

Neville was not feeling particularly good about this plan, and he wasn't the only one. Malfoy looked the worst of all of them. He was a pale looking boy at the best of times, but right now even the air around him seemed diminished.

Sirius and Lupin were taking a final moment to comfort each other and muttering things like, "We'll be with James and Lily soon." They had refrained from copious drinking before, but now had apparently decided to break out the Firewhiskey for one last, glorious piss up before they kicked it. Snape was happily marking a couple of student essays he had brought along with him. He laughed on several occasions. Lavender reapplied her make-up. If she was going to die then she was going to look good. Harry and Hermione were having a "tactics briefing" half-concealed behind a bush.

And Ginny just sat staring at Neville.

"Well, are we ready to go then?" Harry asked once he and Hermione emerged from bushes and failed to smooth out their hair (a fruitless effort on both counts).

"But Ron isn't back yet," Malfoy said, looking oddly pleased. "If Ron has managed to get himself killed out there, then we can't ever attack. _Ever_." Harry seemed to consider this for a moment.

"I think we're not really missing anything without Weasley," Snape said. "If we need someone to make a complete arse of themselves and possibly kill us all then Black and Lupin have had a good few to drink."

"It's settled then," Harry said. He took a step towards the castle but Malfoy suddenly shouted.

"There's another way into the castle!"

Everyone looked at him.

"There's a back way around the other side of the mountain," he clarified.

"How in Merlin's name could you know about a Secret Entrance when even I didn't?" Snape demanded. Malfoy seemed to need time to think about that one.

"Er, um, ah, well, the thing is." He took a deep breath. "Aha! My father – my father was a high ranking Death Eater. He told me _all_ the secret ways in."

"_All _of them?" Hermione asked. "Are there more than one?"

"Of course not. The Dark Lord isn't stupid. He knows better than to have more than one poorly guarded entrance to his impregnable fortress."

Snape did not looked entirely convinced, but the prospect of a secret entrance had everyone else feeling a lot better about the whole thing (except for Sirius and Lupin, who were worried they might sober up in the time it took to travel the whole way around the mountain).

Ron took his sweet time getting back.

"What kept you?" Harry demanded when he returned.

"I got a bit lost," Ron replied. "That castle is really big on the inside." The members of the group took a moment to process this.

"You actually went to the castle to use the bathroom?" Snape shrieked, losing his composure first. "Couldn't you have just gone behind a bush?"

"Mum would kill me if she caught me doing that," Ron explained as though he were talking to a two-year-old.

"So the Death Eaters let you into the castle?" Harry asked, looking thoughtful.

"They're not stupid enough to fall for it twice," Malfoy said, obviously reading Harry's thoughts correctly. "Even Crabbe and Goyle would get suspicious if all of us wanted to use the bathroom."

"We could say that Ron's a bit nervous and needs all of us there to support him," Harry said.

"That's true, I do take a long time to get comfortable enough to go," Ron beamed. "If I had some encouragement it would definitely be a lot easier."

"Let's just go to the secret entrance," Neville said, taking charge of this disaster. Ginny enthusiastically agreed with this suggestion, bouncing up and down in a way she'd obviously learned from watching Hermione. Neville took a moment to swallow before telling Malfoy to lead on.

It took a full day to get around to the other side of the mountain. There was a small wooden door; exactly were Malfoy had said it would be. It was only guarded by four Death Eaters. Ron managed to distract them by asking what they thought about the Chudley Cannons's chances for the season. When the four had been stunned Ron revived one of them to carry on the argument.

"No, you fool, Heskey is a useless Seeker," the Death Eater insisted as Harry stunned him for the second time. Ron had his wand at the ready to revive the Death Eater once more, but Neville and Malfoy fought to restrain him.

"Ron, we need to get going," Neville pleaded.

"I want to wake him up so I can beat some sense into him," Ron snapped. "I shall not sit back and allow the great Heskey to be insulted in this way!"

They eventually got Ron through the door. They were standing in a long corridor that wasn't lit at all. With the aid of a _Lumos_ spell Snape was able to light the way in front of them a bit more. He led the group down the corridor, followed by Hermione clinging to Harry, Ginny clinging similarly to Neville, Ron attempting to hold an unwilling Malfoy's hand, Lavender on her own, and Sirius and Remus stumbling along.

Eventually they hit a snag in the plan. The corridor branched off into five different equally dull looking corridors. Snape called them to a stop and turned around to look expectantly at Malfoy. Everyone else did likewise (although Ron had to glance around a bit before he realised what everyone was looking at).

"I don't know," Malfoy said. "But I'm fairly sure at least one of them leads to the castle."

"Let's split up gang," Harry said, happily clapping his hands together. "We'll go in groups of twos."

"I pick Lavender!" Neville exclaimed. He wiggled free of the grip of a disappointed Ginny to stand beside a perplexed looking Lavender.

"Fine!" Ginny snapped. "I'll just go with, er... um... Harry!"

"He's with me," Hermione said cheerfully, bouncing up and down.

"With Sirius," Ginny said then.

"I'm with..." Sirius looked at the face of his oldest friend for a long time as if hoping to remember something.

"My name is Remus."

"Aye, that one," Sirius said happily, before collapsing to the ground as Remus ceased to support him. Unfortunately their relationship of support went both ways, and Remus likewise slumped down to the ground.

"You and me will be together then, sir?" Malfoy asked his beloved professor. Snape glared at him.

"Absolutely not," he snapped. "I'm going nowhere with a traitor to the noble Slytherin House. Who else is there?"

Ron made a goofy grin. Snape sighed.

"Oh, is there no one else?"

"There's me," Ginny shouted. She bounced up and down, which drew Neville's eyes to a part of her that continued to bounce up and down for a brief (yet wonderful) moment after she had stopped. Snape did not look pleased, but he weighed up his options.

"Looks like it's you and me again, Malfoy," Ron said. "Alone at last."

Malfoy looked positively mortified.

"Remember, if you want to talk to the other groups then the charm is _Walkus Talkus_," Hermione told them. "Everyone pick a tunnel."

The five groups each took a tunnel. Snape made sure to stop Malfoy from trying to take the way back out again before he took his own tunnel with Ginny.

"You're kind of cute in a greasy way," Ginny told him once they were alone. "Do you want to try and make Neville jealous?"

Snape sighed and wished he had picked the other Weasley.


	24. NF: Chapter 8

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

_A/N: There are two more chapters to come after this one, then an epilogue. The delay is due to wanting to mess about with the last few chapters a bit more, hoping to get them right._

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter eight_

_everyone's favourite weasley_

Neville and Lavender made their way down a dank, deserted corridor, while Neville tried desperately to think of something terribly clever to say that would make her throw herself at him. Girls thought dimly lit rooms were romantic, right? Would there ever be a better chance for him than this?

Neville took the lead, feeling that as the gentleman he ought to take the force of any Death Eaters or horrible monsters that might charge unexpectedly towards them.

After ten minutes of walking along in awkward silence Neville decided to make his move.

"Your hair looks nice today," Neville said.

Lavender, despite popular belief, was not a total idiot. She saw right through him. And judging by the look on her face, she was not pleased about it. She gave no response. Neville cringed a bit as he continued walking down the corridor.

"Aren't you going to make some comment about my breasts then?" she asked. Neville turned bright red, and was very glad the corridor's only light source was his wand.

"What happened, Lavender?" he asked. "Last year you were all over me, and this year you seem like you couldn't care less. Is it something to do with becoming a werewolf? Do I have some sort of repulsive smell or something?"

"Oh no, you smell fantastic for a man," she replied. "It's just that it suddenly became obvious to me that you're totally in love with Ginny Weasley."

Neville stopped suddenly and Lavender walked straight into his back. They both clattered to the floor.

"Wha – what?" Neville choked. "I'm not in love with Ginny Weasley!"

"Oh, _please_," Lavender replied. "You love her, like, _so_ much. You're just totally in denial."

"I'm not in denial! You're in denial!"

"Mature," she said flatly. "Are you going to, like, help me up or what, pretty-boy?"

Neville did not like being called pretty-boy, but he helped her get to her feet anyway. She made to walk down the corridor but Neville stop her by latching onto her arm.

"I'm not in love with Ginny."

Lavender rolled her eyes. "Keep saying that. Maybe eventually it'll be true." She shook off Neville's grip. "But you are totally in love with her and, whether you know it or not, you always have been. And you two are, like, totally going to end up together."

"How do you know?"

"Because you're perfect for each other. Deep down you're still this insecure little fat boy who thinks he's a total loser, and you need constant reassurance and affection. Ginny is the only person alive who can give so much undying devotion to a single person. And you're good for Ginny because you're the only person on earth who can see any worth in her. All I can see is this plain, boring, silly little girl who seems to have no skill at all in life and I can't imagine why she's got it into her head that she'd have a shot with someone as dreamy as you, but apparently she has."

"Hey!" Neville snapped. "That's not fair. People are always putting Ginny down but she doesn't deserve it! She's smarter than you give her credit for, and she's a really good cheerleader too. She's strong willed and dedicated; you'd have to be to pursue Harry all those years when he doesn't even notice you when you're talking to him. And she's beautiful. Sure, not in quite the same way as a supermodel or something, but she's got a really sweet smile and her hair is a wonderful shade of red. When she's embarrassed she gets this really cute pink tinge to her cheeks as well. And now she's got breasts, she's perfect! So I don't want you saying any bad things about her any more!"

Neville had expected Lavender to look at least a little ashamed of herself, but she was just grinning at him. He groaned.

"Oh God, I'm in love with Ginny Weasley." He banged his head firmly against the wall. He quickly regretted that decision and wondered just why he had thought it would ever be a good idea.

"Come on, lover-boy," Lavender said. "Let's got defeat You-Know-Who so that you and your girlfriend can finally settle down and have all that passionate sex she's always going on about."

Neville had to admit the idea sounded quite appealing now.

###

As soon as Harry was confident that he and Hermione were out of earshot of everyone else, he quickly pressed her up against the wall and began kissing her quite passionately. This was clearly what their relationship had been missing before. Kissing, somehow, made all those little arguments about her flirting with other guys disappear.

Unfortunately for Harry, Hermione eventually managed to regain her composure. He was not particularly enthusiastic when she broke the kiss, removed his hands from her chest and asked if he thought they should go on. Harry reluctantly agreed.

They'd gotten a little way down the dark, dank corridor when Hermione decided to use her _Walkus Talkus_ spell to contact the others. Just Harry's luck; the first person she called was Snape.

"What do you want now?" he demanded.

"It's been so long since we talked," Hermione replied. "How's things? Did you do anything exciting today?"

All Harry could hear was Snape giving a loud groan.

"Everything's fine," Snape told her. "The corridor is dark, long and there doesn't appear to be anything on it. I fully expect to die at some point in this endless corridor."

"That's lovely," Hermione said. "How's Ginny?"

There was a long silence before Snape finally answered.

"I thought I'd forgotten something. How on Earth did she manage to get lost walking down a perfectly straight corridor?"

"You'll have to go back for her," Hermione said, but she didn't even convince herself that she thought it was a good idea.

"I'm probably better off without her," Snape decided. "She's not the brightest one, as I recall. I'd probably be better off in a fight if I didn't have to look after her."

"How do you know she's not smart?" Hermione asked. "What are her Potions essays like?"

There was another awkward pause.

"Even her essays are so unremarkable I can't remember them," Snape replied at last. "How could someone so pointless be allowed to exist?"

"I remember Mrs Weasley once told me how disappointed she was in Ginny," Hermione said. "Apparently she'd always wanted seven boys. It was the worst day of her life when Ginny popped out."

Snape suddenly shushed her. "Stay quiet. I think someone's coming."

Hermione kept the _Walkus Talkus_ charm going so that they could listen to what was happening to Snape. They heard some footsteps through the spell, but they stopped.

Harry was growing impatient.

"SNAPE!" he roared. "What's happening?"

"There's someone there!" a voice they didn't recognise shouted.

"I'll kill you Potter!" Snape called, then suddenly there was no noise coming through the spell anymore.

"Snape? What's going on?" Harry asked. "Snape? Snape? SNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!"

"He's dead," Hermione whimpered. "I don't believe it. He's actually dead."

Harry gave her a reassuring hug and copped a feel in what he hoped was a reassuring way.

"Don't worry, Hermione. He died doing what he loved; screaming death threats at me."

Hermione cried for a full five minutes, which Harry thought was a bit much given how she'd never even liked the bastard (he knew better than to say that out loud, at least).

"We must push on," Hermione said. "It's what he would have wanted."

Harry had no doubt that Snape would very much have wanted him to walk straight into a Death Eater fortress and get himself captured, tortured and eventually brutally murdered by a load of Death Eaters. He probably would have gotten quite a kick out of it.

"Let's go," Harry agreed. Whether Snape wanted them to or not, he still had a Dark Lord to kill.

A little further down the hallway they came to an unremarkable wooden door.

"It's a door," Harry said helpfully. Hermione went in to examine it and several spells before she came to the same conclusion. Sometimes it paid to be safe with magic.

Harry opened the door (after Hermione had performed seven or eight spells on the doorknob) and peaked his head around. It was a darkened corridor very much like the ones found in Hogwarts. He supposed that meant they were in Voldemort's Fortress. He crept out into the hallway. At one end of the hall there was a corner, and a light seemed to shine from it. Harry crept along the shadows of the wall, gesturing to Hermione that she should follow.

Then, suddenly, a Death Eater appeared around the corner. He stared straight at Hermione and Harry, and was about to open his mouth when Hermione raised her wand.

"_Stupefy_!" she whispered. The Death Eater suddenly slumped to the crowd. Harry and Hermione had a quick victory snog before another Death Eater came around the corner. This one did not look at them, but instead looked down at his poor friend.

"What's wrong? Are you alright? Are you hit? Are you hurt? Are you alright?" he asked his poor friend, and thought it rather rude that his friend gave no reply.

Harry raised his wand and cried, "_Reducto_!"

The spell blew a hole clean through the Death Eater's face and sent bits of brain flying against the wall behind him which they struck with a _splat!_

"Cool," was Harry's response to the first time he ever killed a man.

He wandered over to poke the Death Eater's body with his wand. It was still twitching a bit, and Hermione was sobbing again, for some reason. Had he not been busy poking the body with his wand, he might have noticed the horde of Death Eaters now charging around the corner at him.


	25. NF: Chapter 9

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter nine_

_the power of lurve_

The Death Eaters managed to round up their intruders fairly quickly. Sirius and Remus were caught indulging in some heavy drinking in the wine cellar. The Death Eaters had not been previously aware of the wine cellar, but were lured there by drunken singing. There they found not only Sirius and Remus but also a rather large Jewish family who asked if the war was over and they could go outside yet. As they were Muggles they were promptly tortured, killed and forgotten about.

Neville and Lavender put up a hell of a fight, and Neville easily managed to fell twenty Death Eaters and slay a giant, but in the end weight of numbers was their downfall.

Truly, Ginny put up the best fight of all. Even when they thought they had her stunned and in custody she still managed to break out and the Death Eaters chased her three times around the whole castle before they managed to catch her. Even then, she kicked and screamed.

"Just you wait!" she shrieked. "When my Neville finds out I've been captured you're going to be very sorry!"

When she found Neville had also been captured she puffed out her cheeks in anger.

"You are utterly useless at this rescuing me thing! The last time you even managed to get yourself killed. When Harry rescued me from the basilisk he was barely even mortally wounded. Maybe you should take a leaf out of his book!"

Neville felt quite annoyed that Ginny was shouting at him, but even more annoyed that she was suggesting he take hints from that idiot who (let's face it) had just got in lucky swing with the sword.

The Death Eaters took their wands and led them to the throne room, which including a rather tacky-looking throne constructed entirely of human skulls. Lord Voldemort obviously wouldn't be winning any points for originality.

The group was roughly shoved by the Death Eaters to stand at the base of the Throne of Skulls. They stared quizzically for a moment at the empty throne.

"What, is he too busy to deal with us or something?" Harry asked. "I'm only the greatest threat to his plan for global domination, but I can wait, if he has to talk to his mum on the phone or something."

"Harry, contrary to popular belief, when surrounded by an army of Death Eaters is not a good time to make sarcastic remarks about their leader's mother," Hermione said.

"Although, should you wish to make any remarks about Weasley's mother I'm sure they would be very well received," Snape added helpfully.

At last the Dark Lord made his entrance through a small door off to the left of the throne. Following behind him was Wormtail, who never wandered too far from his Master in case he got bored and needed something within range that he could torture for a while.

Lord Voldemort did not look at them at first, but took his place up on the throne before turning to face the group.

"Yes, I have you at last," Voldemort hissed. "And every one of your friends as well: Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of her age and three times winner of Little Miss Jailbait; Severus Snape, Potions Master and expert in the Dark Arts; Sirius Black, the master criminal who became the only man ever to escape Azkaban (that is, the only man to do it without _my_ help); Remus Lupin, the wild wolf; Lavender Brown, gossip hen extraordinaire and buxom blonde; and Neville Longbottom." He took a deep breath. "Perhaps the most powerful of all Harry's friends. We shall see if he lasts longer than the others."

There was a brief moment while Voldemort regarded Ginny.

"You're not one of mine are you?" Voldemort asked. Ginny swelled in anger.

"I AM SICK OF THIS!" she shrieked. "I'm Ginny Weasley, the girl you seduced in my first year with promise of sweeties and having an actual friend, but you really just wanted to get me into a dark room so you could show me your big snake!"

Lord Voldemort chuckled. Perhaps that had been a mistake.

"And more than that!" Ginny stormed up to the throne to stand over the Dark Lord. "I'm Head Cheerleader of the Gryffindor Team, and since I've got breasts - _fantastic breasts_ I might add – I think I've finally started to come into my own. And I'm the smartest witch in _my _year, never mind Hermione, who is the smartest in a year that includes Ron and Goyle!"

One Death Eater gave a helpful wave, before remembering that he wasn't Goyle; he was Crabbe.

"So I'll have no more of this pretending not to know who I am! Frankly it's gotten a bit old!"

Neville had to admit he was quite impressed. Voldemort looked a bit impressed as well. Unfortunately he showed this the same way he showed just about every other emotion...

"_Crucio!_"

Once Voldemort was satisfied that Ginny had done enough shrieking and wailing for mercy he lifted the curse and instead went to harass someone important.

"Miss Granger, why in Merlin's name have you raised your hand?" Voldemort asked.

"I just want to know one thing," she said. "How did you know we were coming? The only way your Death Eaters would have been able to catch us is if they had plenty of advance warning."

"Ah, yes!" Voldemort exclaimed. He turned around and strode over to the wall in perhaps an ill conceived attempt to look dramatic. "Little did you know that the whole time you were travelling you had a spy planted in your very midst."

"Ron was right about you!" Harry shouted, punching Snape square in the jaw.

"No, it was not Severus," Voldemort said smugly, spinning around to face them again with an overly-dramatic sweep of the cloak. "Step forward, my faithful spy!"

From the Death Eater ranks someone stepped forward. Hermione gave a shriek of surprise. Everyone else, including Harry, looked totally unsurprised. Lavender even managed to look a little bored.

"Can I just say that I knew it was him all along," Harry said.

"Then why did you punch me in the face?" Snape demanded.

"Er... for the lolz?"

"That's right, I have betrayed you!" Malfoy drawled. "I managed to become a Gryffindor and gain your trust, albeit I didn't exactly want either at the time, and betrayed you to avenge my father's death!"

"But Draco, we trusted you!" Hermione sobbed. "And your father was horrible to you! He beat you and raped you and murdered your beloved pet falcon."

Malfoy took a moment to process this. "Yes, but he also fed me, clothed me, taught me Quidditch and duelling, and showed me affection for sixteen years. And what bloody falcon?"

"B – b – but what of the love we shared, that was pure like that of a brother and sister?" Hermione pleaded.

Briefly Harry's face contorted to show nothing but purest fury, but he calmed down slightly when he saw that Malfoy looked almost as disgusted as him.

"Enough of this," Voldemort said. "Is this all of them?"

"My Lord, we found everyone," Malfoy said. He hesitated for a moment. "Well, except Weasley, but he's too much of an idiot to be any sort of threat."

With an uncharacteristic show of brilliant timing Ron suddenly arrived at the door of the throne room wielding an uzi in each hand.

"Hasta la vista, baby!" Ron bellowed. He pointed the two guns at the room and proceeded to empty the clip into the unsuspecting Death Eaters. Neville found he could not move, and could only close his eyes and pray that none of the bullets hit him or his friends.

There was a long period where the loud _bang bang bang_ of the gun was quiet. Ron did an awful lot of cursing during this time as he struggled to reload two guns at once. But eventually he managed to get it right and gunned down the remaining Death Eaters who had been cowering in fear at what they perceived to be demonic weapons.

One poor Death Eater slumped against the wall, clutching his bloody chest. "Damn, I was only two days away from retirement."

Neville slowly opened his eyes. To his amazement, he was totally unharmed. Looking around he saw that all of his friends were also miraculously unscathed, though every single Death Eater appeared to have been minced.

"Aw drat," Malfoy muttered when he saw the devastation around them.

"What happened?" Neville asked. "How could we all possibly survive that?"

Hermione started jumping up and down and waving her hand in the air. For a moment Malfoy looked like he might smile again, but the sight of all his dead comrades changed his mind.

"Okay, Miss Granger," Snape said.

"It must have been Harry and Neville's wizarc powers," she said breathlessly. "They activated to help protect themselves and everyone they cared about."

"What's a wizarc?" Ron asked.

"_Honestly_, Ron!" Hermione said hotly. "It's a... well, I suppose it's a wizard thing."

"I'd totally forgotten we were wizarcs," Harry said. "It's nice that that finally came in handy. Up until now our powers seemed pretty irrelevant and useless."

"Voldemort and Pettigrew must have escaped," Snape said. "Their bodies aren't in the pile of blood and assorted human parts. There's a door. They must have gone through there. If we don't hurry they'll escape."

"It's a dead end," Malfoy said glumly. "That's the Dark Lord's personal chambers. No way in or out." He looked like he was about to cry.

"So, the powers only worked on those of us that Neville and Harry actually cared about?" Ron asked.

"Yes, Ron, that's right!" Hermione exclaimed with glee. "I'm so proud of you! That's the fastest you've ever caught on to something like this." Ron still looked a bit confused, but he shook it off.

"I guess that sort of explains why Ginny got riddled to bits. It's a shame. I was just starting to get used to having her about."

Neville suddenly gave a cry of anguish. How could he have failed to notice his beloved Ginny? Her body lay a few feet away from him. He dropped down to his knees and cradled her body to him.

"Oh, Ginny. You can't die!" Neville pleaded, feeling like completely denying reality was the way to go here. Somehow her perfect, beautiful, overly-freckled face was undamaged. Even more amazingly, her perfect, beautiful, wonderfully freckled cleavage was also totally undamaged.

"I'm so sorry, Ginny," Neville wept. "I should have thrown myself in front of you to save you. I wanted to tell you, I really don't mind having you about... I sort of like the attention." Lavender suddenly gave a rather loud false cough. "Okay, I never told you, but I love you, completely and utterly. I can't imagine spending the rest of my life without you following me around like deranged lunatic. Please wake up."

"She won't wake up man, she's taken thirty seven bullets in the stomach," Sirius slurred. Apparently he and Remus had found a supply of whiskey behind Voldemort's throne and were helping themselves.

"Can't we try that CPR thing on her, like you did with me?" Neville asked. Harry shook his head.

"Doesn't work for bullet wounds."

"THEN WHAT'S THE POINT OF IT?"

Neville took a moment to think. "What about you, Hermione? Can't you help Death get his rocks off again?"

"It won't work. Death said it would only work once," Hermione said. Neville pulled Ginny closer to him. How could this happen? It wasn't fair.

"Is there nothing we can try?" Neville pleaded. "Anything. Please. Any half-baked, utterly ridiculous ideas that might work?"

For a while no one seemed to be able to say anything. Then Lavender said something.

"I have an idea."

"What is it?" Neville asked. Lavender seemed to hesitate.

"Bearing in mind it's a totally half-baked, utterly ridiculous idea that's pretty much certain to fail."

"So are most of the plans we come up with. I don't care," Neville replied. "I'll try anything."

"Well, I read this book once. It was about a beautiful princess who died. And the handsome prince managed to resurrect her with the power of one perfect kiss that showed all his love for her."

"Oh, I've read that one!" Hermione squealed. "And then he bent her over the dead body of the evil knight that had slain her and took her roughly from behind!"

"Oh, wasn't it soooooooo romantic?" Lavender said.

"So, you're saying that I have to kiss her and the power of love will bring her back to life?" Neville asked.

"Neville," Ron began. "We live in a world where witches and wizards perform magic spells, ride around on broomsticks and have whole streets filled with wizarding goods hidden from Muggle view. We've managed to keep dragons, giants and trolls secret from the Muggles for centuries, despite the fact that dozens of Muggles go missing every week because of them. Our gold is protected by Goblins, and our coins are four times the size of any Muggle currency and totally impractical. We go to school in a castle which, despite being in the Scottish Highlands, is somehow warm all year round. You can deflect bullets with your mind, Lavender, Sirius and Remus can all transform into animals, and we regard a silly little boy who never washes as our saviour because he managed to fluke it past a Dark Lord when he was a baby. Hermione is the smartest witch of her age, and yet still can't seem to work a simple hair-straightening spell that they teach little four year old witches. Despite only having a dozen members of staff and eight people in each class, Hogwarts apparently has hundreds of students. We have Hagrid, three headed dogs, unicorns, magic potions of immortality, enchanted diaries that try to kill people, a magic clock that tells you were people are rather than the time, giant snakes living under our school, a secret island prison guarded by what are pretty much Ringwraiths, flying horses, boats that can be sailed underwater, several schools hidden across Europe, massive solid gold stadiums that seat ten thousand that Muggles still can't see, a bunch of terrorists dressed as members of the Klan, magical glass eyes that can see through walls and people's clothes (which we then give a pervy old man), cloaks of invisibility, mirrors that show us what our enemies are up to, crystal balls, basins that hold our thoughts and Trevor the toad, who somehow manages to constantly escape captivity no matter what we try. In fact, I'm nearly sure that's him sitting on the throne right now. Living in such a world, is the power of love bringing someone back from the dead really such a stretch of the imagination?"

Everyone looked totally taken aback by Ron's sudden outburst.

"Well, I guess I could give it a try," Neville said. "After all, I was sort of dead the first time she kissed me. Looks like I ought to return to favour."

Neville lowered his head to kiss Ginny, but pulled away suddenly when he felt everyone's eyes on him. He gave them a pointed look. They all turned away to give Neville a moment of privacy. Remus did so with a bit more protest than everyone else.

"What? I never get to see any action. At least Snape got to ride the rat when we were at school. I still don't even know what's supposed to go where!"

Hermione slapped him and he shut up.

"Well, it's now or never," Neville whispered. "I love you, Ginny."

Holding her in his arms he used one hand to prop her head up slightly. He gently lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers, as delicately as he could. She was still warm, and her lips tasted of strawberries, for some reason.

"Not like that!" Ron snapped. Neville jerked his head back suddenly, just in time for Ron to proclaim, "Let me show you a _real _kiss!"

He then grabbed Malfoy, who had no power as Ron suddenly grabbed him in his vice-grip and gave him as kiss he'd probably have nightmares about for years to come. Malfoy made the mistake of trying to open his mouth to scream, which gave Ron the opening he needed to insert the tongue. Neville managed somehow not to vomit, but Harry was not so lucky. Whilst he was trying to catch his breath after vomiting up what looked like everything he'd ever eaten Sirius tried to offer him the whiskey to help calm his nerves.

Once Ron's dramatic display of affection was over Malfoy curled up into a ball to cry, and the others all looked at Neville.

"Okay, here it goes, again," he said. He leant forward and kissed her again, being more forceful this time. Her lips were still unyielding and unresponsive, and Neville was about to pull back for air when suddenly two small hands clamped at the back of his head.

Suddenly Ginny's lips parted and Neville's own mouths was under assault as Ginny gave him the most mind blowing, unbelievable kiss any man had or probably ever would experience. In fact, he was certain he could hear the chorus of angels ringing in his ears (in fact it was just a bit of selective hearing kicking in, and he didn't hear Hermione telling Ron off for farting either).

Eventually air became a necessity and Ginny pulled back for air.

"I love you too, Neville," she gasped. Neville felt the tears suddenly start to flow. For one, he could never have imagined even a year ago that anyone, let alone himself, would care so much about Ginny's life. Love was funny like that.


	26. NF: Chapter 10

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

_A/N: Okay, I said I would be faster than this posting, but ran into the slight barrier of actually finding a job and discovering that this takes up a lot more time and energy than you'd realise._

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter ten_

_the final showdown_

"As disgusting as this is," Snape said. "We have the small matter of the Dark Lord Voldemort to deal with. If it's convenient for you to go and destroy him now, of course."

"What if it isn't?" Neville asked from his position on the floor, where he had gotten Ginny's shirt off and was struggling valiantly to remove her bra.

"PUT YOUR SHIRT BACK ON AND GO DEFEAT THE DARK LORD!" Snape roared.

There was plenty of grumbling but the group gathered together, fully clothed again, to prepare to confront Lord Voldemort.

"Does anyone have anything deep and meaningful they'd like to say?" Harry asked, looking around the group. Everyone glanced at each other.

"Well, I for one -," Lavender began, but Hermione cut her off.

"I – I – I would just like to say how much all of you mean to me..." she said with a sob. "Even Lavender, who almost makes me look like a little bit less of a slut. Thank you all for following me and my beloved Harry on this epic journey. I know he'll do us all proud."

"Wouldn't it make more sense for us all to gang up and beat Voldemort by weight of numbers?" Neville asked.

"You know, James would have not have stood for that," Sirius slurred. "He would have spouted some nonsense about an honourable fight and all that bull. Then he would have gotten killed. I'll never understand why he and Lily didn't just team up to take on Voldemort. They could probably have won easily. They were both awfully powerful..."

Unfortunately the moment Harry heard what his father would have done he instantly decided to do the exact same thing, no matter how stupid it was. Neville had learnt that over the summer when Sirius had stated that James would have been willing to eat that mouldy green thing they found behind Neville's Gran's sofa, which was probably been in her house longer than Neville. Harry had been hospitalised.

Today he didn't have much more sense. He opened the door and charged straight through.

"Face me Voldemort, ye villainous cur!" he roared.

Hermione quickly rushed to follow.

"Your days of wicked deeds have passed, and your hour of judgement is come!" she cried.

Ron wandered in after them, feeling like he really ought to. He stood and struggled for a moment to think of something to say.

"I have to pee."

"My brother, ladies and gentlemen," Ginny announced. "I am _sooooo_ proud."

After the trio had their attempt at looking like Charlie's Angels the others wandered into the room at their own pace.

"Harry Potter," Lord Voldemort hissed. "We meet again at last. All I ever did was try to take over the world, murder your parents in cold blood and then try to dispatch you in the same way before you could walk or talk, but you had to go and make it _personal_."

"I'm going to kill you, Voldemort," Harry told him. "And not just for myself, though I won't pretend not to enjoy it immensely. I'm doing this for all the people you've killed. Like my parents and Cedric."

"Didn't Ron technically kill Cedric once as well though?" Hermione asked. "Should we kill him a bit too?" Harry pretended he didn't hear her and just raised his voice a little.

"And for all those Hufflepuffs whose names I don't remember or care about," Harry went on. "Oh, and some old Muggle. And Ginny Weasley!"

"Harry, I'm still alive," Ginny said. Harry spun around to look at her, his eyes wide with shock.

"I thought you died in the Chamber of Secrets!" he exclaimed.

"No, you saved me! Remember?"

"You mean you've been hanging about for five years and I didn't even notice?" Harry asked. "Bloody hell."

Harry turned around to face Voldemort again while Neville struggled to stop Ginny from strangling Harry, however much Neville thought he probably deserved it.

"Now, Harry, we must choose our seconds," Voldemort said. He cast a dark look at Wormtail. "I suppose I'll take Wormtail then. Not like I have much choice."

Harry turned around to likewise survey his options. He was taking a good long look at Snape when Hermione started bouncing up and down (which naturally attracted everyone's attention).

"Harry, I think it's so sweet that you've decided to pick Ron, your best friend, as your second," she said. Harry looked extremely put out.

"Actually, I was thinking Snape would know plenty of dark spells-."

"Thank you, Harry, my brother," Ron said, placing a hand on his shoulder. "I'll do my best to make you proud."

"And Neville's quite handy with a wand," Harry said.

"Oh, doesn't such affection just bring a tear to your eye?" Hermione asked.

"Even Sirius would be a better choice, and he can barely stand!" Harry exclaimed, now getting quite angry. Sirius wobbled and took a sip from a bottle as he and Lupin had somehow managed to find _yet another_ bottle of whiskey from somewhere.

"I think that it's the sweetest thing ever," Hermione stated more firmly this time. "And such a good friend would definitely score tonight if he did it."

Harry was, for once in his life, utterly speechless. Eventually he managed to turn to Voldemort and say, "Let's do this then."

Harry stepped forward and bowed to Voldemort, who returned the gesture.

"On three," Voldemort said. "One..."

"He's going to cheat," Neville called to Harry, who seemed to ignore him and didn't even bother taking a duelling stance before Voldemort fired a Killing Curse.

"_Avada Kedavra_. Two!" Voldemort said proudly. "_Avada Kedavra_. Three!"

Either Voldemort was an appalling shot or Harry was the luckiest bastard in the history of the universe, because both curses flew well wide of their mark, failing to harm even Harry's group currently lined up against the wall. Even so, Neville (rather heroically in his own humble yet gorgeous opinion) stepped out in front of Ginny to protect her should a stray spell head her direction.

Harry finally sprung into action and he and Voldemort exchanged volleys of spells. Some clashed harmlessly against the wall. Voldemort managed to parry a fair few of Harry's efforts, but Harry just seemed to be staying alive totally out of luck, with every single spell missing him by inches.

But luck would not last. One of Voldemort's stray spells ricocheted off of the wall, a lamp, a passing mirror beetle, an Orc shield, another wall and Wormtail's outstretched shiny hand to smack Malfoy unexpectedly on the chest.

"Oh no, it can't be!" Hermione shrieked as Malfoy slumped against the wall.

"What is it, Hermione?" Ginny asked.

"That shade of green! It's too bright to be _Avada Kedavra_ and not bright enough to be a Bat-Bogey Jinx. It can only be one thing!" She slumped to her knees beside Malfoy and began to sob.

"Well, don't keep us in suspense!" Snape roared at her. "Hurry up and tell us so Potter can get his head back in the game and notice that the Dark Lord has been flinging curses at him whilst he stands there like a pillock waiting for you to inform his under-developed brain!"

"It can only be the Slow Death Curse!" Hermione wailed.

"Yeah, my day just gets better and better," Malfoy grumbled.

"And there's no counter-curse!" Hermione sobbed.

"Then what's the point of it?" Neville demanded. "Why not just use a normal Killing Curse?"

He was ignored. (In fact, I want even _you_ to forget he ever said it).

"Nooooooooooooo!" Ron shrieked, charging over to Malfoy. "You can't die, my beloved!"

Malfoy looked at Snape. "Please, just put me out of my misery before he tries something silly."

"I have an idea!" Ron exclaimed.

"Please, Snape, kill me now!"

"I'll do what Neville did! One good snog and my love will bring him back from the dead!"

"No, Weasley, you buffoon! Get away from me!"

It is unknown whether Malfoy was killed by the eventual effects of the Slow Death Curse or if he suffocated on Ron's invading tongue. It doesn't really matter which actually finished him off, but know that his demise was not gentle and was definitely more painful to him than anyone could ever imagine.

"You're a bastard, Voldemort!" Harry screamed. "I wanted to be the one who finally got to kill that miserable little shit!"

"How noble," Snape muttered.

"Pathetic," Voldemort hissed. "Reminds me off your mother. She dropped to her knees and wept for your father. Pathetic slut."

Harry suddenly tensed up.

"You know she wasn't half bad, for a Mudblood. I've often regretted that I never gave into my... base instincts with her. As they say, _she was no show pony, but she'd have done for a ride around the house_."

Harry's hands were shaking. He was practically growling now.

"She had a nice pair of tits on her too. Shame about the ginger hair though. Maybe I could have found a spell to get rid of those disgusting, ginger pubes."

Neville couldn't help but wonder if Lord Voldemort was totally unaware of the massive career mistake he was making by taunting Harry like this. Surely he could recognise that look of pure fury on Harry's face.

"She'd probably have loved every minute of it as well, the dirty bitch."

Voldemort seemed to have at last realised his mistake because his face went even whiter than it had been before. Harry didn't even bother using his wand. Instead he pulled back his fist, and pooled all the anger in his body that he could muster into his little fist. He thought of the evils Lord Voldemort had done, all the people he'd killed, all the times Malfoy had taunted him, all the House Points Snape had taken from him and all the things Ginny did that annoyed him (mainly having the nerve to exist) and focused them all into a that little fist that started to glow red hot.

"FALCON..."

"Oh shit," Lord Voldemort muttered.

"PAAAAAAUUUUUUUNNNCCCCHHHH!"

The force of Harry's punch was enough to propel him a few feet forward to strike Lord Voldemort square in the face...

And the world went white.


	27. NF: Chapter 11

**DISCLAIMER: Based on characters and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling**

The Neville Trilogy thunders towards its cataclysmic conclusion at breakneck pace

_**NEVILLE FALSUS**_

_chapter eleven_

_anticlimax_

Voldemort was obliterated instantly. His body parts flew off in random directions, with his stray arm impaling Wormtail through the chest.

Neville and the others could only cower in fear as the whole world around them turned white. Neville felt himself being lifted off the ground and flung against the wall. He groaned as he slid down to the floor. He felt something small and warm beside him, and he curled up to protect it. It must have been Ginny.

Eventually the world returned to its usual full spectrum of colours. Where Neville was that was largely black and grey. He got up to look at Ginny, but discovered that he was actually spooning Lupin by mistake. He jumped up, hoping no one else had noticed.

He looked around the room. Everyone else was slowly rising to their feet. Wormtail was over in the corner with an arm buried in his chest. Bits of Lord Voldemort were scattered across the room.

Harry was lying in a heap in the middle of the room. Hermione gave a characteristic shriek and ran over to Harry's body. Neville followed at a slightly more leisurely pace.

"Is he dead?" Ron asked.

"No, he's alive," Neville said, feeling just a tad disappointed. "Just unconscious." It was just typical of Harry to be awake while there was all the fun of defeating the Dark Lord but to be sleeping whenever all the real work like cleaning up the bloody remains of said Evil Sorcerer had to be done.

"Somebody pick him up," Snape said. "Not you, Black, you're too drunk. Longbottom, put that pretty little arse to work and do a levitation spell."

Neville did the spell, though he felt a little self conscious about bending over to cast it on Harry. When he stood upright again Snape and Ginny were both drooling.

Well, with the love of his life impaled by Voldemort's arm Snape probably thought of himself as single now...

And it was comforting to Neville that at least Ginny had a dreamy look on her face as well.

"Well, shall we go then?" Hermione asked. "We've got a bit of a walk."

They were able to leave through the front door. Neville was levitating Harry's sleeping form and Hermione was levitating Malfoy's corpse for some reason. Ron had also picked up what appeared to be Voldemort's left foot and was playing with it while they walked. Once outside they ran into the creepy old man who was their current Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher.

"I came when I heard you'd beaten the Elite Four," he said. There was an awkward silence.

"Riiiiiiiight," Neville said at last. "Let's get going then."

"We'll be taking Portkey then?" Hermione asked. "I just thought, why didn't we take a Portkey the first time? If we didn't register one it ought to have been untraceable, and we'd have gotten here so much faster."

Snape was twitching in anger.

"SON OF A BITCH! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?"

###

When they arrived at Hogwarts Professor McGonagall was waiting for them.

"Where have you been?" she demanded.

"Professor McGonagall, we did it!" Hermione squealed. "We defeated Lord Voldemort and saved the Wizarding World!"

"I don't care!" McGonagall shouted at them. "You just took off and left school without any notice. You been skipping classes for the last two weeks and you haven't handed in any of your assignments! You are getting sooooo much detention!"

"B-b-b-b-b-b-," Hermione stuttered. "But we saved the world."

"Well, that's all well and good, but it won't help you in real life situations like your Transfiguration will! How will you ever survive in the working world if you can't turn a badger into a tea set? You'll be losing one hundred points _each_ and a month's detention! And I imagine you'll be totally unprepared for your exams."

"Aw, what?" Harry asked, suddenly giving up on pretending to be asleep. "I would have just let Voldemort kill you all if I knew I'd have to do bloody _exams_!"

"And you, Severus!" McGonagall rounded on her colleague. "Leading students astray yet again! After that mass poisoning of students you were already on probation! This sort of thing may have flown under Dumbledore, but I'm running a different ship now! YOU ARE FIRED!"

"But, how I will I ever be able to torture young innocent people that don't deserve it?" Snape asked. "And how will I pay for my crippling addiction to hardcore pornography?"

"Have some whiskey," Sirius said. "It takes the pain away. You've been hanging around this school for too long anyway. It's beginning to get creepy. Now, I'm off to see my wife. She's old and may very likely have died in my absence. Or perhaps she's been sleeping for two weeks straight and hasn't noticed I'm gone yet. Come Remus!"

Sirius and Remus both cast an arm around Snape's shoulder and led him out of Hogwarts to his new lift of copious drinking, sleeping on Sirius's sofa and pretending to be deaf whenever Sirius and Augusta had their special time.

"And Mr Malfoy appears to be quite dead," McGonagall said. "There will be more points taken off for this."

###

Neville had waited a lot longer than he felt any boy should have to wait for this. After coming back from saving the world he had been bogged down in homework, detention and exams, but now he was finally free to spend the evening alone in his bedroom with his beautiful girlfriend. He had successfully distracted all of his roommates. Seamus was off in the dungeons doing hard drugs with a couple of the Slytherins, Dean was up in the Astronomy Tower with the newly formed Hogwarts painting class doing a painting of a naked boy and enjoying it all too much and Ron and Harry were playing chess... again.

Kissing Ginny was fantastic as well. Her overly-aggressive style certainly made things very interesting. She was definitely as good a kisser as Hermione had been; probably better since she didn't have the massive breasts hampering her. Not that Ginny didn't have a wonderful set herself. Neville was looking very much to enjoying them more a little later.

He was just enjoying the kissing when Ginny suddenly broke the embrace, adjusted her shirt and stepped back. Neville was a bit annoyed and tried to step forward to kiss her again, but she just took another step back.

"Ginny, what's wrong?" Neville asked.

"Neville, you're fantastic," Ginny said. "And I love you so much. But because our love is so strong that I think we need to take a break."

"Wha?" Neville asked, feeling both confused and outraged.

"It's just that we both have to do our own things. You have a job and stuff and I'm still at school."

"Actually, I was hoping to get the Potions's Professor job so that I could spend the year shagging a young, innocent schoolgirl rotten," Neville pleaded.

"And I think that we need to spend some time apart. Of course, our love is so pure that it stands to reason we won't be allowed to see other people."

"Drat," Neville muttered.

"I love you too, Neville," Ginny said. "It'll be too hard to see you for the rest of the year, so for the next two weeks I'm going to sit in my room being horny and lonely, and you can't possibly get to me because the stairs will turn into a slide."

She touched a finger to her own lips and then pressed it against his. She left the room, leaving him feeling more confused and angry than he ever had before.

###

Neville stood on the battlements flinging rocks at the second years studying below, who were not particularly bright and were pleading with the castle to tell them why it was so angry at them.

At some point Harry came out to join him. He seemed to be unusually quiet as he watched Neville.

"Ginny broke up with me," Neville said.

"Yeah, Hermione dropped me too. Something about getting out, exploring the world, sowing wild oats. I had no idea she was so keen about being a farmer." Harry sighed mournfully. "Yeah, this sucks." Neville kicked the battlement in frustration.

"It just doesn't make any sense to me!" Neville roared. "I mean, we saved the whole damn world! We defeated the most evil wizard who has ever lived! Doesn't that mean that we should get the girl at the end of it?"

"Well..."

"It's just not right! Why bother with all this if we don't even get a happy ending?"

"Still, at least we've got each other," Harry pointed out.

"Oh, a fat lot of comfort, that is," Neville snapped. "I didn't save the world to be stuck with you and Ron Weasley, the ugliest ginger in the world. As a matter of fact I had my eye on a ginger with considerably more cleavage and a lot less penis."

"Just don't get it, do you?" Harry asked.

"What?"

"This thing, this _whole_ thing, it was never about saving the world or about helping everyone be happy. It was never about you and Ginny or me and Hermione..."

"It wasn't?" Neville asked.

"No. It was all about you..." Harry took a deep breath. "And me."

"Er, Harry, what in Merlin's name are you on about?" Neville asked. Harry took a step closer to him, making Neville take a step backwards.

"You can't deny it anymore. It's clear to everyone," Harry told him. "We can't let ourselves be destroyed by our unresolved sexual tension."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a second!" Neville backed up a bit more, but found himself now pressed up against the edge of the battlements. "What are you on about? We don't have any unresolved sexual tension; we're just friends... if that!"

"Oh, Neville, you silly boy," Harry said. "I think it's quite clear that we could never be _just friends_."

Harry's hands suddenly closed around Neville's shoulders in a vice-like grip that Neville found he could not break, and his only escape was behind him straight off the edge of the battlements. With nowhere to run he could only watch in horror as Harry closed his eyes, puckered his lips and leant in, coming closer... and closer... and closer...

Actually, plummeting to a bloody death couldn't be so bad, could it?

... Closer...

_The End_


End file.
